Drawing a Prison
by MLfan64
Summary: Steven and Connie get trapped in Rose's room. Trapped in a world where they can do anything but leave. Together, they'll have to use what little control they do have to find a way home. (AU, splitting off after Kevin Party. Updates Bi-weekly)
1. Day 1: Trapped

Day 1: Trapped

* * *

"I want to exit," Steven said. Nothing. "Are you listening or not, room? I said, I want to exit!" he said. And nothing spawned. He turned to me, confused. "Any ideas, Connie?"

"Um…" I said. I scratched my head. This wasn't like Rose's room. Last time, a door just spawned when we asked it to. So what was going on?

Steven and I had been hanging out in Rose's room. After everything else going on with the gem war and the Diamonds, he suggested we hang out in here to cool off, with no danger to our lives looming over us for once. Personally, I thought it was an awful idea, considering the _last_ time we decided to hang here, but he somehow convinced me. Still, I had a bad feeling in my gut.

Until that moment, I thought I was wrong. Until that moment, everything was going fine. Heck, until that moment, it was going great! In that room, there were limitless possibilities! Anything we asked for, bam, there it was!

The problem, though, came when it was time to leave. Because Steven wanted to summon a door to get out, and it wasn't spawning.

"Maybe you aren't being specific enough?" I stammered." Maybe it's summoning an exit, but it's, like, 50 miles away."

"It's understood what I meant every other time I asked for something!" Still he looked to the sky. "Room, we don't want the gems to get worried when we don't return. I want you to summon a visible, _unlocked_ door that leads to the _real_ temple right in front of us."

And once again, nothing.

"Is the room working at all?" I said. "Room, I'd like a… pen or something."

Nothing. I was starting to get scared. Did the room stop working?

Steven facepalmed. "Connie, you can't summon anything, remember? I want a pen, and the _exit_ , please!"

A pen summoned in Steven's hand, but not the exit. He put the pen in his pocket absentmindedly.

"What's going on?" the two of us said at the same time.

I turned to look at the trail of stuff we made as we goofed off in here, oblivious to the coming threat. I saw everything we had summoned, but the door we used to enter was conspicuously absent.

The two of us wandered the various bits and pieces of stuff we had let behind. A VR console, since Steven always wanted to try using an oculus rift. The next book to Unfamiliar Familiar, as I would've written it (In which I learned I wasn't a great writer). The first things we made, to make sure the room was working. A stuffed elephant, a stand-up mirror. But as I saw from the distance, the door wasn't there.

I was getting nervous. The room didn't do this last time. No, last time, it just spawned a door when we asked it to!

The two of us kept thinking of what else might help us get out. Well, Steven was. I couldn't stop thinking, what if we really were trapped here? "Oh!" Steven finally said. I jumped back, startled. "One time, I summoned a gateway to another part of the temple! Maybe that'll work!"

"Try it, then." I said eagerly. Even with what little information we had, I was already jumping to conclusions. What if the room had grown sentient and had a lust for blood? I knew I shouldn't have read so many 'machines taking over humanity' stories before the trip. My mind kept sending thoughts of us, trapped here because of the room's rouge AI. I shook my head multiple times. Maybe it was just a glitch, right? The temple's kind of electronic, maybe it was just malfunctioning. Nothing to get worked up about. It wasn't summoning a door to the outside world, but the rest of the temple was fine. We were fine.

"Room, I want a portal to Pearl's room. The real one."

And nothing happened. I froze in place. My breaths started growing more rapid.

"Connie, calm down."

"B-but I said I'd be back by 6:00! If we don't solve this soon, my parents are going to freak out. And what if it takes longer than that! What if-"

"Connie! It's okay." He gave me a cute smile, hoping to cheer me up.

I took a shaky breath. "Then you tell me, what's going on?"

"I don't know. This is the first time this has happened to me, too, you know. But the most important thing is not to panic."

I took another shaky breath. I knew we were in an endless field of pink clouds, but it felt like the walls were closing in on me.

"I told you this was a bad idea, Steven. Every time you come in here, it tries to kill one of us! What if it never lets us out!?"

"Connie, calm down."

"And there's no way to get food in here! We're going to die!"

"Connie!"

"What!?"

"Seriously! Calm down! We've only been at this for, like, 3 minutes. Can you wait to panic until we're _sure_ we're trapped here and it's not some other reason?"

"We've tried everything!"

"Really, Connie? We've tried, like three things. Maybe the room's just overloaded or something from all the other stuff we've spawned today. It _would_ take a lot of energy to create an actual portal. Room, I want all of the stuff scattered here to disappear."

The piles of stuff disappeared. "There, not overloaded anymore. Now, room. Summon a door, please."

A door summoned.

I breathed a sigh of relief. We were fine, then. And I was freaking out. Man, my heart was racing, all for such a simple solution.

Then, Steven opened the door, and it lead to nowhere. Just more clouds.

While my heart filled with dread again, Steven's face scrunched up. "Not funny, room! I want way out! Make this door lead out!" And my heart sank further, because when he opened the door again, nothing. Even dissipating that door and summoning another one, nothing. Even Steven was getting a bit scared, now, no matter how he tried to deny it.

We exchanged a dark look. Nothing we tried was working. Why wasn't the room letting us leave?

I kept trying to stay calm, or at least act like I was calm, like Steven was. Even with the pit in my stomach, there still might've been something we hadn't thought of. But after another 10 minutes of trying so many ideas with absolutely no success we still hadn't found a way out.

Steven summoned a bench to sit on. He slumped down on it. "Maybe you're right. We shouldn't have come in here."

I scowled. "You think? Well, it's great that you had that giant epiphany. Now we're trapped in here!" I looked at the ground. "We're gonna die here." Maybe I should've have yelled at Steven, but I was scared. I guess that was how I was letting it out.

Steven looked at the ground. "Don't be like that, Connie. We've survived worse, haven't we?"

"I don't care. I don't want to die."

"What if the room's just… lonely? And it'll let us out before we die!"

"…The room. Your theory is that the room is lonely."

"Yeah! That makes sense, right?"

"No, no it doesn't. That was supposed to help?" I felt a tear forming in my eye, but I held it back.

"There has to be some explanation, doesn't there? The room's never gone completely insane for no reason. You know when your evil clone attacked me? That was because I said 'I want you out now.' You didn't say 'I wish we never had to leave' or something, did you?"

"I don't have any power here, you know. Did you wish for it?" If he did, then maybe…

Of course, Back to square one. "You know what, I don't care if there's an explination or not! I don't care why we're trapped here! I want to get out!"

It was nothing but an endless expanse of clouds as far as the eye could see. I wasn't hiding my fear anymore. If we never escaped… I didn't want to die here. We could only last 3 days without water, then the clouds would swallow my body. I'd fought gems to the likes of Jasper, I didn't want to be brought down like this.

"Connie…?"

"Steven. What if… what if we really are trapped here? What if we don't find a way out?"

"Connie... I'm sure it's going to be fine."

"But what if it isn't fine? What if none of your theories are true? What if we really are stuck here forever?"

"Then we'll figure something out! The room wouldn't let us starve. This is Rose's room, she wouldn't make it trap people for no reason."

"Look around us. The room isn't conscious, is it? If not, there's no reason for it to trap us. Yet here we are."

"Then what if it _is_ conscious?"

"Then it's even worse! Then it's gone rouge and wants us dead! It's going to kill us through starvation!"

"Room, I want a hamburger," Steven interrupted me to say.

One appeared in his hand.

"…What do you plan on doing with that? You know the room can't make food."

"I know the room wouldn't let us starve." He raised the burger to his mouth and took a bite. And it was real. Through the food in his mouth, he said, "Shee? We'ew mot goin' t' daa."

"What?"

He swallowed his food down, and gave me an earnest smile. "We're not going to die."

My heart rose for a second. Even if the room was trapping us, we weren't doomed. Then sank even further. I had feared death. Now I feared something much bigger.

"But… why would it start giving us food the moment it traps us in here? It's like… it wants to keep us its prisoners. It's giving us food, but not letting us leave." It didn't make sense any other way. It wanted us trapped here, alive. That terrified me.

"Okay, now you're just being ridiculous, Connie. We never ruled out that the 's just glitching out, still. Besides, why would mom have a room that keeps its occupants prisoners all of a sudden? Further, why hasn't it done it in the last 5,000 years? I think the gems would've stopped me from going in if it was that bad."

I had trouble seeing it. Even though Steven's reasoning was sound, something felt off to me, still. We'd tried so many ways to get out. Maybe it was just my gut instinct talking, but I didn't feel like the room was glitching out. It was like it was actively keeping us in.

"Come on. I'm sure this'll clear up. Want to try another few rounds of Super Fighting Fighters while we wait?"

I hesitantly nodded. There was always the chance Steven was right. But there was a pit in my stomach that wouldn't go away.

* * *

We played for another hour. Steven was really trying his hardest to stay calm, to listen to his own logical reasoning, but I could tell he was paying just as much attention to the game as I was. As in, almost none.

Finally, after an hour of doing nothing but playing video games and ignoring our problems, I slammed my fist on the table in front of us. "We can't pretend like nothing is wrong! You know it, I know it. We're trapped here. We're this room's prisoner." I kicked the TV down in anger, which cracked against the room's hard floor.

Steven pointed and poofed the TV away. "Room, I want a door that leads out of here," he said, but it didn't have any energy behind it. Neither of us expected anything, and nothing came. He sighed. "We really are trapped here, aren't we?"

When Steven said that aloud, admitted to me he couldn't see any way out of this anymore, I let myself cry. I might never see my parents again. I might never see anyone again, except Steven. All of my teachers, my classmates, they would never know how I was trapped here in this wasteland of pink clouds. And so I cried. Steven provided me a shoulder to cry on. A few tears went down his cheek as well.

* * *

After all that, I got serious. We needed to find a way out, whether it was even possible to get out or not. First step: What did we have to work with?

We took inventory of everything we had that was _real_ , not made of clouds _._ We had our clothes, of course. I also insisted we brought Rose's sword just in case something went wrong. I had left it leaning against a now-disappered couch, so I picked it up. Steven summoned a sheath for it. It was the only thing besides us that was real. Other than that, we didn't bring a thing.

Our goal? Find a way to escape. We didn't have a plan, but that was our goal.

"We'd better get some stuff for defense. If the room's trapped us in here, we can't be sure it won't try to attack us. I have this sword, but I might want a nonviolent weapon… Room, I want a shrink ray!" …Nothing. I sighed in frustration. "Steven, shrink ray, please?"

He was about to summon one, but he froze. "Idea…" he said. "Room, I'd like a notebook where anything you draw pops out of it!" A notebook summoned in his hand. "Just like in book 2 of the spirit saga, with the book of appearance! Try it out!"

He tossed me it. I opened a page to draw something, but there was a problem.

"I need a pencil."

"Oh, right." He pulled the pen he had spawned earlier out of his pocket. "Will that do?"

I nodded and grabbed the pen from his hands. I drew a shrink ray the best I could. I wasn't a great artist. All that popped out was a normal old gun, which I quickly dropped in fear. I was way too young to be using something like that. I wrote the words "Shrink ray" above my next picture, and it appeared in front of me, a lot more cartoonish.

"I want an apple." Steven said. I gave him a confused look, but he just smiled and set it on the floor. "Try it!" he said. I fired a shot at it. It shrunk the apple into what was basically a cherry.

That was cool, all things considered. And now, if something came up, I could do something to affect the room! I was no longer helpless. Oh, how nice it felt to have some sort of control again.

Out of curiosity, I drew a door labelled 'exit door.' Yeah, nothing appeared. I kind of figured.

The rest of the day was spent simple doing more planning. Getting more cloudy supplies, bouncing ideas as to why we were here in this pink void. Were we prisoners? Did the room want something from us? With so little information, we could only speculate as we sat in an endless ocean of pink clouds.

There was no sense of time, here. We talked and prepared for hours, but the sky neither dimmed or brightened. It was just a bright pink sky. I even tried to summon a watch to keep time, but its hands didn't move.

When the two of us were getting tired, Steven made the room darker, to simulate nighttime. He summoned a bed for himself, while I drew one in my notebook. I put a ton of detail into it! A bed summoned in front of me. Unfortunately, it just made a bed from a dollhouse. So Steven had to make me a real bed, too. I guess my notebook had its limits.

We got to bed. I might have stopped crying, but inside, I was still scared. Scared we would never escape this place. A place where we could do anything but leave. It was almost poetic.

I set the notebook on the cloudy floor. My only way to influence this world.

Despite my fear, though, I tried to stay hopeful. Even if it was a prison where we could do anything but leave, I mean, we could still do literally anything! That had to count for something, right?

But more importantly… I wasn't alone. Steven was always here to support me. If I was trapped here with no friends no family, how long would it be until I went insane?

Stop it, brain. Steven was here.

Whatever times the room might bring, for now, it was time to get to bed. To be fair, it was the softest bed I'd ever slept in. But with all the thoughts in my head, I wasn't asleep 2 hours later.

"Connie?" Steven whispered, out of nowhere. "Are you awake?"

I turned over to look at his bed. His eyes were wide open. "Couldn't sleep either, huh?"

"I… I'm scared," he said. "I might never see the gems again. Sadie, Lars, everybody in beach city, they'll be wondering where I am next week. What if you're right? What if we never escape? I can't stop thinking about that, that we're trapped here forever. It might've seemed like I was mr. perfect back there, but I'm just as scared as you. I don't know why I wasn't crying right there with you. I shouldn't have kept pretending things were okay when they weren't okay. We wasted an hour playing Fighting Fighters because of me when we could've been searching for a way out!"

I shook my head. "I'm not mad at you for that, Steven. You stayed calm while I… I shut down. I'm sorry for exploding at you. It's not your fault that we're here. You could've been right, it could've been a glitch, and I just gave up. Heck, it could still be a glitch. We hadn't tried everything yet. I could've stayed calm, but I just freaked out. Instead of trying to help, I panicked."

Steven then shook _his_ head. "Don't apologize, Connie. You were right anyways, weren't you? I should've listened sooner."

I smiled. We were both trying to pull the blame onto ourselves, weren't we? It was almost comical. "You know what, we're in this together. It's just the two of us left in this place. We both made mistakes, this isn't our fault, let's forgive each other, and ourselves, and move on."

Steven looked me in the eye. "Maybe you're right..." But I saw a bit of doubt in his eyes. That we were trapped forever.

I made a promise, that day. "Steven, we'll escape this place. Maybe tomorrow, maybe 10 years from now, but we will escape. This room won't keep us here forever. I promise you that."

Steven didn't answer. I thought he fell asleep, but he was just looking at the pink, shapeless, cloudy sky.

I turned to look at it as well. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful prison.

I don't know when it happened, but eventually, I fell asleep.

* * *

 _A/N: Just an idea I had for a story a while back. What if Steven and Connie got trapped in Rose's room? It's probably been done before, but I haven't seen it. So it's original in my book, okay?_

 _The story's also kind of inspired by the music video_ _Shelter_ _, trapped in a world where you can do anything and all, but it's mostly its own thing. I mean, literally nothing's original, I'm just using a similar basic concept. The notebook might be a bit on the nose, though… Meh._

 _I'll be continuing this for a few chapters, at least. Maybe more if people end up liking it as much as some of my other stories. If you do like it, fave, and follow so you won't miss them, and to let me know you want this to continue. For the record, I_ _do_ _have a bigger storyline planned. Come on, it would be boring if it was just Steven and Connie messing around in the room, even with some intense emotions in there, too. There_ _is_ _a reason they're trapped in Rose's room, for example, and that notebook is more than it seems. So, stay tuned for some story to go with the characters._

 _Oh, and review if you want. How're you liking the first chapter?_

 _Finally, if you like my style, check out The Infinity Link: Bonded by Fate. It's 110K words long and growing, and also features Steven and Connie with a fairly unique premise. So if you want more MLfan64, you can have some before my next chapter releases!_

 _Is that the end of my shameless self-promotions? Yes? Cool._

 _Next time, day two. Where the characters develop further, and the meat of the story begins. See you guys then._


	2. Day 2: Panic in the Clouds

Day 2: Panic in the Clouds

* * *

My eyes creaked open and I saw dark, cloudy wasteland. My slitted eyes flew open and I looked around frantically. Where was I? How did I get there? Was I dreaming? Why was it so dark?

And then my memories came rushing back.

I sighed and flopped backwards onto my bed. Maybe, somewhere inside of me, I thought it was had been a dream yesterday, that I would wake up in my own bed, my own life. But this sea of clouds was real. We really were trapped here.

I glanced over at Steven. He was still fast asleep. I suppose that was why it was still dark in the room. He didn't ask for it to light up yet.

I grabbed my notebook I had left lying in the pink clouds below and opened it. I felt like playing some Pokemon or something. I drew a 3DS to play on. If this thing could make a shrink ray, I figured it wouldn't be a that hard to make a DS.

Just as I finished drawing the outline, I felt a small shaking from beneath me. Confused, I looked down. The rumbling kept going, stronger and stronger. Before long, it was a full-on earthquake rumbling through the room. I was shaken off my bed, onto the floor. I had trouble keeping my footing!

"AH!" Steven said. I looked over at him. He was on the floor, rubbing his head. I guess he was woken by the earthquake. He looked back and forth frantically. "What's going on!?"

"I don't know!" I said.

From the pink clouds underneath us, some giant structure bursted upwards, carrying us with it. I grabbed Stevens hand to pull him up, and the two of us ran as fast as we could across whatever was rising from the ground. A shadow drifted over us as we ran, but I didn't look back to see what it was. I heard our beds being trampled by the crushing power of the rising structure, but the sound was quickly drowned out by the rumbling of the earthquake.

The two of us ran and ran, in fear of our lives. But up ahead, I saw the structure dropping off into nothingness. The two of us skidded to a stop as the structure continuing to raise. "We have to jump!" Steven said.

There was nothing but darkness and pink clouds off the edge, the ground was completely obscured. Without any light source, I couldn't tell if the drop was 5 feet down or 50. "What if it kills us!?" I said.

"Well, we just might die if we stay here!"

Before I could worry any more, the structure shook violently. Steven was thrown into the void of clouds. All hesitation I once had shutting down, I dived after him, and our hands met in midair. I felt the wind rushing by my face, and then, nothing. We were floating in midair. Steven had activated his floating. The two of us slowly floated to the ground, around 5 feet below us. The moment we touched, the rumbling began once again. I covered my head to protect myself from any rubble that might fall off, and Steven quickly followed suit. It got louder and louder, the rumbling stronger and stronger, and then, it all stopped.

The structure stopped rising, and the room fell silent, aside from our heavy breathing. We slowly turned and stepped back to see the monolith that had risen behind us.

"You know," Steven said, "If you wanted to wake me up, you could've just splashed cold water on my face." I chuckled nervously.

The two of us continued to stare at the strange object that had broken our beds into pieces, that nearly killed us. It was too dark to see much, just the looming shape over us.

"Room? Could you, um… brighten up please?" Steven said.

The room brightened up, and I got a better look at it. The shape was… odd. It was a giant block made from some sort of shiny material, like metal or plastic. Not only that, but on the other end of it, just before it ended, there a nearly identical block, not sitting on the ground, but sticking upwards into the sky. Kind of like… a giant, awkward chair with no legs? An open clamshell? I glanced down at my notebook, which I had carried all the way through the chase. Or maybe it resembled a giant, open 3DS…

Out of curiosity, I pulled the pen out my pocket, where I had placed it during the chase, and started to draw in details of the 3DS. The circle pad, the D-pad, the buttons, labelled A, B, X, Y. As I drew, I heard the sound of plastic rubbing against plastic. I didn't look up, not yet. I made the screens, tiny bumps for the L and R buttons. All the little details, too, the charger port, the camera. Only when I was completely finished drawing did I look up. I saw the finishing touches being made to the giant 3DS right before my eyes. It was… impressive, for lack of a better word.

"H-how did you do that?" Steven said.

"I don't know," I said, maybe more shocked then him. "It couldn't even make a full-sized bed yesterday. And I didn't ask it to be giant."

We stared continued staring at the no-longer-handheld console.

Steven turned his head to look at me. "Hey, Connie? You still got that shrink ray?"

I said nothing, just nodded. I grabbed it from my pocket… Huh, where did I put it? It wasn't in my left, or my right… Then, I remembered. We put all the stuff he might've needed in a bag of holding, which I had left at my bedside. You know, the bedside that had been eaten by the rising DS. I stared at the huge wall, with our bag of holding sitting atop it.

"…Maybe you should summon one yourself."

Steven sighed. "Room? Shrink ray, please." One appeared in his hand. He fired a shot off at the DS. And… nothing happened.

The two of us sighed simultaneously. Couldn't we catch a break for once?

"Maybe mine will work?" I said.

"Why would yours possibly work when mine failed?"

"Why would yours fail in the first place?"

"I don't know. The same reason we're trapped here, I guess."

"As in, no reason at all?"

"Pretty much."

I looked at the giant DS. There was a good 15 foot climb before getting to the top of the bottom screen.

I was going to make a ladder or something, but I hesitated. What if my notebook decided to make a ladder right below us, thrusting us into the air and killing us?

As I was thinking over how best to go about this, Steven cleared his throat. "So, um… I guess I'm going to be the one to mention the elephant in the room. Why, exactly, did your notebook make the giant DS?"

I looked at him with a stare that said 'I don't have a clue, and I already told you that.'

"I don't suppose you have a better way of figuring things out besides trial and error?"

"Not really…" I sighed. "I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for an instruction manual to come with the room?"

Steven's face lit up "Hey, room? Can I have an instruction manual for how you work?"

The two of us looked to the sky eagerly. Nothing. I sighed once again. "Old fashioned way it is," I said.

I looked Steven in the eye, and he nodded. With that, I started slowly lowering the pen onto the page. Steven braced himself against the floor. To start with, I drew a hill with a tree sitting atop near the top of the page. That way, if it came out underneath us, it wouldn't be too much of an issue. The hill did appear, but off in the distance. A hill rose on the horizon, with a single tree sitting atop it. The two of us just got even more confused. What were the rules of this thing? What dictated distance, size?

"Can you… still make the littler things like you did yesterday?" Steven said.

I turned the page and drew a pencil. On the horizon, a giant pencil leaned against the hill. It was a little comic, to be honest.

Still, I scrunched my face. Why? Why was all this changing? I scrunched my face. I knew this wasn't my fault. Had someone replaced my notebook in the middle of the night or something? It didn't make sense, but it was the only thing I could think of.

I thought back to yesterday. I was able to write "shrink ray" to make my gun into a shrink ray. What if I added adjectives to the picture? I wrote "Small pencil" and put a picture of one. But, um, that didn't work. I got a small pencil, all right… a _really_ small pencil. It was the size of a toothpick! I scowled and tried again. I wrote "Normal pencil" next to my third drawing of a pencil, and I got a normal old pencil. Finally.

"That's… something," Steven said.

"Wonder why it's suddenly acting like this," I said.

We stared at my notebook.

Steven cleared his throat. "Now that we know how my notebook works, want to get to getting rid of that thing?"

"I thought we were trying to shrink it."

"Well, that, too." I drew a ladder and wrote "Normal" right next to it. We climbed said ladder up the giant DS, onto the touch screen. The thing was off, fortunately. Who knew what would happen if it was on. With the logic this room seemed to have, we might've been sucked into it or something! Anyways, we reached the front without a hitch, and I found the bag of holding. Things were finally going well. It almost felt like it was going _too_ well…

I grabbed the shrink ray from out of it and pointed it at the DS we were standing on.

"WAIT!" Steven said. But I had already pulled the trigger. Steven winced as the beam went into the giant DS… And nothing happened.

"…What?" I said.

Steven let out his breath. "You are so lucky… if the shrink ray had worked, maybe it would've been a good idea to fire it when we weren't _on_ the target?"

"…Oh."

At that point, The DS shook violently. Again. We were thrown off balance, and the platform beneath us started shrinking.

I was tired, but I started to run anyways. Before I could get far, Steven grabbed the back of my shirt.

"What are you doing!? We need to run!"

"Room, I want rocket-boots on the two of our feet!" Steven said. They appeared. The two of us hovered upwards as the DS shrunk beneath us, quickly into a normal sized one.

"…Woah. Quick thinking, Steven."

We lowered to the ground slowly. Rocket boots, huh? I could have some fun with these. We lowered to the ground.

I grabbed the DS and tried powering it on. Lo and behold, it worked.

"By the way, any idea why your ray worked and mine didn't?" Steven said.

I shrugged. "Maybe we can only affect the stuff that we created? That's my best theory, anyways."

Steven shook his head. "This is melting my brain."

"Tell me about it."

I drew a wall to lean against, making sure to label it as being normal sized. I leaned against it and slid to sit down. I looked to the sky. "I just wanted to play pokemon!" I yelled.

Steven laughed at that. I was angry at first, but before long I joined him.

"You know, I'm glad I'm stuck here with you, Steven," I said. "No, wait. Not that I'm glad I'm here or anything, I'm just glad, if I'm trapped here, it's with you. No, wait! I don't want you to be trapped here. What I meant was-"

"I get what you're trying to say, Connie."

* * *

After all that, we cleaned up the mess. Steven poofed away the broken bed, I erased the hills and giant pencil off in the distance. We learned that, apperently, if you erased the image, the real world object disappeared. We had to summon an eraser that could erase pen to do so, of course, (Probably the most impressive thing the room made yet) but now I have it for the future. And after that was cleared up, well… there wasn't much to do.

We could goof off, of course, but that felt shallow. We should've spent all our time trying to escape, right? We didn't _want_ to be here. But what more could we do? We were in a prison with no doors. We weren't given much to work with.

After 15 minutes of trying to escape with little success (Steven tried _asking_ the room what was wrong with it, to which, of course, we got no response), we were left back at the drawing board.

I thought of how our bed was shattered. "I guess we could work on a house to live in while we're here."

Steven, previously happy, suddenly froze in place, then looked at the ground. "Could… could we wait on that?"

I was perplexed by his sudden change of mood after what I thought it was a reasonable thing to suggest. "Uh, sure. What do you suggest we do instead, then?"

"You know, we never talked about how your notebook became supercharged. Did you do anything special to it?"

"…Didn't I already say I didn't have a clue?"

"Did you write 'become more powerful' in it?"

"I'm pretty sure I would've remembered that. I might've muttered it, but I don't have the power to alter the room with my voice. I mean, it would be more likely if you said "Would you become more powerful, notebook" last night, wouldn't it? You can say something accidentally more easily than you can "

Steven tilted his head. "I don't remember saying it… Ever since I, um… accidentally replaced you with a clone, I've tried to be careful about what I say to the room."

I remembered _that._ I shuddered slightly at the memory.

His logic seemed sound. "If it was neither of us, then I don't know what possibly could have done this. Nothing here seems to make sense, anyways."

Steven sighed. "I guess you're right.' He was looking more down then I had ever seen hem… "I just wish we knew how this stupid area worked."

"Yeah…"

The conversation collapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

I tried to break it. "Um, I suggested maybe making a house earlier?"

"Yeah, okay," Steven said. He seemed oddly defeated, for some reason.

I thought, I had to have been imagining it. Defeated? That word didn't apply to Steven. "Um, do you want to start, or should I…?

He looked away. "You can do it." I looked at him, concerned.

"So, um… do you want it to be, like, a mansion, or just a normal house?

"You can choose, Connie."

I couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing."

"No, it's obviously not nothing. Seriously, what's wrong with building a house?"

"Nothing's wrong with it."

"Then why are you so sad because of it?"

"I'm not sad."

"Yes, you are. Don't lie to me. I want to help! I can't do that unless you tell me what's wrong!"

"Nothing's wrong, okay!?"

"Then why are you so afraid of building a house!?"

"I'm not afraid!"

"Then why are you acting like this!?"

"Acting like what?"

"Why are you acting you're not the Steven Universe I know as a friend!?"

"Because-"! And he stopped.

I looked at his broken face. "Steven, I want to help you. You know that. So why-"?

He interrupted me. "Because building a house means that we're admitting we're trapped here!"

There was a moment of silence as I processed what he said. "What?" I said.

Steven hung his head. "I guess I thought… that this wasn't going to be a big thing. It never felt real to me, you know? I thought we'd be getting out of here today, maybe tomorrow. I've been abducted by homeworld gems twice, three times if you count being captured while capturing dad, and I've always escaped within a few _hours_. But then, even though it was scary, at least we had an idea of what was going on. We can't even figure out your notebook, here, why could I expect we'd figure out how to escape? If we build a house here, it means giving into that fact. It means telling ourselves that we're here to stay. You don't build a house on a deserted island if you think you're leaving in a week, you build a small shelter. If we build a house, it's like admitting we're here to stay." He looked at the floor and didn't say a word.

I didn't know what to say. I… I didn't expect that outburst. And what could I say? I didn't know how to calm Steven down. The last time I'd seen him this emotional was after he escaped being _abducted_. Still, I swallowed my pride. I would try my hardest to tell him it was== going to be fine. After all, it would be better to try and fail then not try at all.

I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. Yesterday, I accepted we were trapped here, for now at least. I guess I never realized you didn't accept it. Heck, I didn't consider it! You were going along with everything, getting supplies ready, and- Look, my point is, we aren't giving up. We're never giving up, okay? I'm sorry it seemed for a second that we were when I suggested we build a house. We're going to keep fighting. Heck, if I ever seem like I'm giving in again, please, slap me in the face."

"Connie? Just… just let me be for now."

I shook my head. "Not until I finish what I'm trying to say. Okay, you're right, we _might_ be here for a while. We might be here for months, or even years. And yeah, I'm sad about that. My parents might bug me sometime, but I want to see them again just sa much as you want to see the gems. But I promise, on my life, we won't be trapped forever. Don't forget that."

At that point, Steven turned to me. He had several tears running down his cheeks. His breaths were choppy. "Oh yeah?" he said, desperation bleeding into this voice. "What proof is there then, huh? Tell me that. How do you know we're not trapped forever? Tell me. TELL ME!"

Every part of me wanted to stop talking. Steven should be left alone, my body said. But I _needed_ to help him. I took another deep breath. "I don't have any proof. Of course, I don't have any proof. But I know you. I know _us._ And we've gotten out of worse than this. You remembered when we took the entire ocean back from Lapis? You remember when we beat Jasper, just the two of us? You remember all the times things seemed hopeless, but we pulled through? We can get out of something like this. I wasn't suggesting building a house because I was giving in. Not even a little bit. I just think we should be comfortable while we plan our escape. I'm not simply giving up, oh no. I'm waiting. Because I've seen enough prison movies to know how this works. If this room is sentient, if it is trapping us here, sooner or later, it's going to make a mistake. And that's when we strike. Maybe we're trapped for now, but there's no such thing as a perfect prison, even here. I can't speak for you, but personally, I'll get out of here if it's the last thing I do. I'm not giving up, okay? And I _am_ speaking for you when I say you shouldn't give up either."

I waited For Steven's response. It took him 15 seconds before he spoke up. "Thatk you, Connie," Steven said. "You're right, we're not giving up. Still I need some time to think. You've already thought seriously about how we might never see the gems again. I thought about it, but I still thought we'd escape soon. I just… I want some time to think."

Suddenly, the clouds started swirling. The two of us looked around, confused. Then, I realized what Steven had said. He said he _wanted_ some time alone. The magic words. "Steven!" I yelled, but he was drifting away, swallowed by the torrent.

"Connie!" he yelled. And he disappeared into the coulds. They swirled and swirled, and I had trouble staying on my feet. My dress fluttered violently. I crouched down to lower my surface area. I was in a tornado of pink clouds, threatening to blow me away. " **STEVEN!"** I yelled. I got no response except for more heavy winds. I lowered myself further. I felt my grip on the floor slipping. I felt the clouds beginning to lift me up, no matter how hard I tried. And then the winds died down. I collapsed onto the ground. And Steven was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

 _A/N: For the record, there is a very specific ruleset I've designed for the room (A ruleset, of course, that I'm not giving away in this author's note). Anything that happens in the story happens for a very specific purpose, in accordance to the 'rules of the room.' Well… not everything, I suppose… I mean, them eating a hamburger probably won't mean anything._

 _ **OR WILL IT!?**_

 _Nah, it won't._

 _Meh, I'm not entirely happy with this chapter. I guess it'll do, but I don't know, I had trouble keeping up the emotions from the last one without it feeling forced. I hope I did a good job with that._

 _Considering the overwhelming positive reception of the story, I think I might keep pushing the story forward. Currently, I enjoy writing this. I think I might be able to get this out twice a week if I don't get burnout._

 _If you like it, remember to fave and follow so you'll be notified when the next chapter comes out! Always nice to find someone who appreciates the effort I put into these stories._

 _And if you're feeling especially generous, please, leave a review. I love to hear people's theories about what's going on. Shows reader investment, man! I mean, there isn't much to go on just yet, but trust me, there'll be more intrigue popping up soon. And hey, it's not like there's nothing to go on, there's still theory bait here if you look for it. Like, why_ did _Connie's notebook get a sudden power boost? And why_ did _they get trapped in the first place? I already have the answers in mind, time to see if anyone figures them out._

 _For the record, I like to respond to every review posted, and there was a guest review posted onto the story. So, I shall respond here!_

 _To guest: You proposed an interesting theory, actually. The room being something like a fallout shelter. I suppose you'll have to read on to find out if you're right!_

 _Next time: Day 2.5, and maybe day three if I get that far (I doubt it). Connie will have to work with a very fickle notebook to find a way to find Steven again. And then, reconciliation! See you then._


	3. Day 2(2): Desperation

Day 2-2 Desperation

Shaking myself off from the tornado of clouds, I looked around frantically. Steven was nowhere to be found.

"Room, Steven didn't mean it! Bring me back to him!" I yelled, as loud as I could so Steven could find me if he heard. No response, of course. I quickly grabbed for my notebook to write something to help get me back to him. But I wasn't holding it anymore. At some point in time, I dropped it in the tornado of clouds.

I desperately looked around. The notebook couldn't have been far. It had to be somewhere on the room's floor, right? But all I could see were pink clouds in every direction, masking the floor all the way up to my knees. No Steven, no notebook, not even the bag of supplies we packed. Just… clouds, as far as the eye could see.

I patted myself down. All I had on me was my dress, and… a pen. Somehow, my pen had managed to not fall out of my pocket during the tornado. Too bad it didn't matter if I didn't have a notebook to go with it!

I searched my mind for some other plan. I grabbed at the clouds beneath me. I tried to shape them into something. A teleporter, another notebook, anything. But my hands went right through them. They were just clouds unless Steven willed them otherwise.

No. No no no no! This couldn't be it. There had to be something I could do. I wasn't useless. I couldn't be useless! I was Connie, the sword fighter. I was Connie, the crystal gem! One day, I would protect the world, what did it matter if I couldn't protect myself!? There had to be something I could do. There had to be.

I looked at the clouds strewn across the ground. There were no landmarks, I couldn't even tell how far I'd gone. I could've stayed in place, I could've teleported hundreds of miles. I was lost, without anything to help me.

I started shaking. I hated being helpless. But now, all I could do was wait. I wasn't totally lost, anyways. Steven would probably wish me back any second, right? I just had to wait.

But… why hadn't he done that yet, anyways?

Did he not want me back for now? Maybe he was bust thinking.

He probably thought I had my notebook, right? And he said he wanted some time alone…

I needed to contact him. We made a messenger in the bag, if I could find that, I could tell him what was wrong.

But… the clouds were too deep. They were up to my knees or so, I couldn't see anything. Even if I _had_ dropped the bag in the whirlwind, there was no way I could find out except random chance.

I collapsed onto the ground. I couldn't even make a bed to lay on while I waited, and waiting was all I could do.

I thought of what we could do with the room once I was free, because you know what, I was done trying to escape for now. I thought of what insane things I could do in a place with no limits. I could make myself into a batgirl or something with the gadgets we had! Heck, Steven might be able to ask for superpowers, skip out the gadget middleman.

And I couldn't do any of it until he decided to bring me back.

*Sigh*

* * *

But then 30 minutes passed, and Steven hadn't summoned me back yet… I had run out of things to think about, and I was getting worried. Why wasn't I by his side yet? Did he… did he not want to see me that much? Did he hate me that much? I shrunk down. Why didn't he want me back? Didn't he miss me? Did he even want me there at all?

No, no. There had to be another explanation. Could he… could he have been trapped? Was that it? What if he was stuck, unable to do any more than me. The room had tied him up or something, given plenty of 'time to think' while he could do nothing else. Given all the time in the world to think, trapped forever.

But… even if that was true, there was nothing I could do. All I had was a stupid pen. I couldn't save him, even if I wanted to.

And then, I didn't even know if Steven needed the help at all. Maybe he was perfectly happy leaving me in the middle of nowhere. What did I have that he didn't anyways? All I'd done since we got here was screw everything up. What if it was my fault we were stuck here?

I tried to hold back my tears.

…Sometimes, when I'm especially sad, or happy, or emotional, I sing to myself. It was a way for me to… cope. To cope with all the crap life threw at me. Everything before I met Steven. I didn't do it around people much, but sometimes, when I was overwhelmed, I might sing. That's how Steven managed to get me to jam with him, when he got me to burst into song.

With all the emotions I felt, I began to sing.

* * *

(Fairly slow tempo, but speeds up over the song)

Should I be helping you, Steven?

Please tell me you're stuck, say you want me to.

'Cause I want to help you, Steven…

But I don't know if helping's the right thing to do.

* * *

What if I'm overreacting?

What if you just want to be left alone?

What if you're fine, what if you're not waiting?

What if the truth is what I've been shown?

* * *

*Sigh*

* * *

Now I'm alone.

Forgotten.

No help in sight,

And I see no way out of it,

Alone.

Forgotten,

And I guess I might,

Be-hav-ing a psy-cho-tic, fit.

* * *

I don't want to be alone,

never again.

That's the truth, and it's clear to see.

Before I ever met you, Ste-e-ven

I thought of death.

(Pause)

So please don't leave me…

* * *

(Long pause. Very slow tempo)

You want to know the truth?

You want a window into my mind?

You probably think this is unlike me,

But without you, I guess I start to unwind…

* * *

(No longer singing)

"Steven, I know. You can't hear me. But… I want to say, please, I need you. I can't be alone like this. I have a… condition. Remember when we first formed Stevonnie? Remember when we violently unfused? Well, that was because of me. That was all because of me. I have… episodes, you could call it. The way my therapist says it, after all those years of neglect, no friends at all, my mind broke a little. I even contemplated suicide. Ever since I met you, yes, it's been happening less and less. But now you're gone again, and…

And I know, you're not leaving me intentionally, right? I'm trying to convince myself that you wouldn't abandon me. You're you! You called my name as you drifted away, you don't want this any more than I do. And somehow I can't manage to convince myself all the way. I know you, you're not the kind of person to do something like this. If this happened and you _could_ do anything about it, I'd be back by your side in seconds. It's all because of my stupid brain. All I can think is w _hat if you're doing this because you hate me?_ no matter how illogical it is. I'm sorry, Steven. I shouldn't be giving up right now. I'm sorry I didn't believe in you more, Steven. I'm weak."

I closed my eyes and began to sing again.

* * *

I'm alone.

Maybe Forgotten?

No help in sight,

And I see no way out of it,

Alone.

Forgotten,

And I guess I might,

Be-hav-ing a psy-cho-tic, fit.

* * *

I slowly got up. I was stuck, wasn't I? Just a damsel in distress. But when I said those words in my head, they didn't click. The only reason I was still here was because Steven was in trouble, and he needed my help. And I was sitting around, moping about it? That wasn't me. That wasn't the person Steven knew. The person Steven knew would never give up, no matter the hopeless odds. Well, I wasn't going to give any longer! I wasn't forgotten. I was done dealing with my broken brain for now. I would find out of this, all on my own. Because even when things seemed bleakest, I knew, there was always a way out.

I thought as hard as I could. What could I do with only my pen? I thought, nothing. But then, I thought, what if I didn't only have my pen?

There was nothing I could do, that's what I thought, right? The only help was my notebook, which had been carried away by the storm. But I was making an assumption. I said to myself, the only help I could get was my notebook, and it was lost somewhere beneath the clouds. That was true. But I also said there was no way to find it, and that wasn't. There was still a chance of me finding it. If I had dropped my notebook in the whirlwind, that meant it was still hiding beneath the clouds. Not miles away, I didn't drop the notebook until the whirlwind was about to stop. It had to be close. Yes, I didn't know direction, but I had an idea how to make direction not matter anymore.

I took the pen out of my pocket and uncapped it. There was one last thing that would have to work for the plan to word. I took a deep breath and started drawing a line on the floor, to test if it could draw there. Without that critical detail, my plan was nothing. But the pen touched the floor, and from the tip, a line appeared, figuratively shining beneath the clouds. I smiled. If the pen could draw, just maybe, I had a chance.

But just as I was about to begin, I managed to hit another roadblock. The clouds were way too thick to see through. I could barely see even if I blew them away! How would I follow pen marks if I couldn't see them!?

That panic lasted only a few seconds, though. I smiled. When I was taking inventory, I forgot a… gift, Steven gave me. I took off one of the shoes I was wearing. Rocket boots. I pressed the button to activate it, and was thrown backwards by the force, launching 50 feet horizontally.

I hit the floor, hard. _That_ was going to leave a bruise. Still, I dusted myself off. And I smiled. Because even if I hit hard, where I started the burst, all of the clouds had been completely blown away. I reattached the boots to my feet and turned down the dial, to well below _hover_. I braced myself for another rough landing and turned the two of them on. A stream of air came out, not enough to lift me into the air, but enough to blow away all the clouds in a short radius around me. Also, it made me feel lighter, another plus!

Satisfied, I found the part where I had first tested the pen, the point I was at when I first spawned in. I started to draw a line behind me on the floor. My plan, the awesome idea I had come up with to find the notebook I had hyped for so long? I started drawing a spiral, moving outwards from the point where I first spawned in. It might seem stupid, but stick with me here. By drawing a spiral, it ensured I wouldn't miss a thing as I went outwards. If I marked the floor as I went, I wouldn't have to retread old ground, while simutaniously making sure I didn't miss anything! It wasn't perfect, it got slower and slower the further from the center, but it was easily the best method I could think of.

I started slowly, since I had trouble drawing a consistent line while simultaneously walking, but after a few minutes it got a lot easier.

I started the long walk ahead of me. Even with the faster pace, it was slow going. Each loop go longer and longer. More than once, I nearly lost the trail of pen, and I had to step back and search the area. The pen, fortunately, wasn't running out of ink just yet. I didn't know what I would do if that happened…

I stopped worrying about that. I focused on the task at hand. My footsteps grew to be more rhythmic as I settled into a pattern. The slow scratching of the pen, the even pit, pat, pit, pat of the feet. It was almost melodic.

And I stepped on something.

I froze. Eagerly, I looked down. I dug through the clouds…

And my hands connected with a notebook.

I did it. I did it, all on my own. I came so close to giving up, but I alone pushed through. I shook off my doubts, and gave it my all. I raised the notebook into the air in triumph. "YES!" I hollered to the sky.

After that, I quickly turned to an open page and started drawing. The cure for lonliness was finally here. But as my pen neared the page, I hesitated. I had worked so hard to find it… I never made a plan of what to do next! What the heck could I draw that would bring me to Steven? A teleporter, maybe? One that specifically teleported to other people? Could even I be that specific in my notebook, I'd never tried!

Time to put my notebook to the test…

I drew a portal gun, like the ones in portal. But before it spawned, I wrote in some specifications on the side. "Normal," of course, I was very careful to not forget that. Wouldn't want to go all this way and be crushed by a giant portal gun, huh? But I also clarified what it should do. I wrote "Has a panel that allows you to input a name and teleport there." Then, I finished the drawing. I crossed my fingers as it appeared in front of me.

Apparently, I _wasn't_ too specific. A portal gun appeared. Side note, that was incredibly awesome. Anyways, it had a panel on it. I typed "Steven Universe" into the panel, quickly. With the room being malicious when it came to everything else, I half-expected it to bring me to a Steven Universe doll or something, with a troll face attatched. Still, I was hopeful. Even if it did send me to a doll, it would only take minor fine-tuning to the page to force it to bring me to Steven. My vision faded to white.

* * *

When my vision faded back, though, and I was… in the same place as before? There was still the exact same spiral, and it stopped right where I was. That… was the worst possible outcome I could've gotten. I scowled. Why? Why, after everything else, at the last possible step, did my plan have to fail? Stupid room. Stupid everything! Why!?

I threw the portal gun to the ground, and it broke, its remains turning to clouds. I sighed. _It isn't time to panic, not yet,_ I told myself. Maybe I was too specific in my description, or maybe not enough. Maybe the room got confused because it was an existing portal gun, and it didn't know how to make it work

I turned the page and put pen to paper again. Enough using exitsing things. What about… I drew a locket. I tried to make it simple enough for the notebook to understand. I wrote, "Write name to teleport there, Normal." I could only hope that was good enough

A locket appeared, of course, with a keypad on it. I wrapped it around my neck and wrote, "Steven Universe" again. This time, I was a lot less hopeful. I saw a flash of white. I didn't see Steven when I came out the other end. And I looked down to just see the pen marking the floor. I tore the locket off my neck. _Why, this stupid little-_

Just before I smashed the locket against the floor, I froze. The ground, something was off. The spiral wasn't at the end of the line anymore. I was near the middle. Why would it teleport me such a short distance this time, but none at all last time…?

I typed "Steven universe" again, and this time I was teleported to a spot with no pen at all. Was it glitching out or something? Why was it changing every single time?

The room didn't usually make glitchy things… I mean, evil, yes, but glitchy?

…What if it was acting exactly how it was supposed to?

I grabbed my pen and marked a spot on the ground. "Steven, if you're there, I want you to stand on the X." Then, I took off in a random direction.

When I was maybe 200 feet away, I stopped and waited, around 15 seconds or so. At that point, I called out, "Okay, I'm going to teleport to you now!" and lifted my locket. I typed in Steven's name again. And I teleported right next to the X. Which meant, probably, Steven was here. But also, invisible.

…What? Was this, like, the result of Steven asking for time to think? I didn't get it. How did being separated with your body count as time-

Oh my god. Was he here the whole time? Did he hear my, um… song? I sung that to myself, I didn't think he was really listening!

I shook my head. No time to think about that now. More importantly, what could I write that could bring him back?

I opened the notebook. Um… let's assume Steven was just a floating consciousness. That meant Steven's body had to be somewhere, right?

From the notebook, I made a summoner, able to summon existing objects from anywhere, and set it down on the floor. It resembled, like, a pad from Star Trek. I typed into the Keypad, "Steven's body."

The clouds swirled around the base of the mechanism, and Steven's limp body appeared.

I waited a few seconds. I hoped that Steven would just repossess his body. But if Steven was there, he couldn't simply enter his body without my help…

Yeesh… could I _ever_ get a break, here?

* * *

I'm not goint over the process in which I connected Steven's body to his "Soul." Trust me, it was just a whole 30 minutes of dealing with the world's most pedantic notebook. Long story short, I used a magic wand. I know, it's stupid, but it made more sense in context. I waved it, and connected body to soul.

For a few agonizing moments, though, nothing happened. I was nervous. I hadn't gotten any response from any of the other experiments. Why would this one work any better? What if… my locket had just been broken, what if Steven's brain wasn't floating around at all? What if Steven had a different problem all together? But all of my fears evaporated when Steven's body finally lurched to life.

I couldn't resist the joke.

"It's alive! ALIIIIVVVVEEE!" I yelled.

Steven said nothing. He jumped off the bed and pulled me into a hug.

I was taken aback. I flinched at the contact. But then, I leaned into it.

"Thank you," Steven finally said.

"It… it was nothing…" I said. I realized I was blushing slightly.

We stayed in that position for a few more seconds, then Steven pulled out. "What happened?" I said. "Why were you, um… a ghost?"

Steven scowled. "Probably exactly what you think. The room interpreted 'some time to think' as 'I want to be SEPERATED FROM MY FREAKING BODY. You know, easy mix-up."

I giggled. "Well, I mean, you did get time to think, didn't you…?"

"Gee. Thanks, room. I so appreciate it."

I laughed harder. Steven joined in. My heart blossomed. All of my hard work, and finally, he was back.

After we were done laughing, Steven suddenly steeled himself. He looked me in the eye, and they were serious. "Really, Connie, thank you. Don't say 'it was nothing,' it wasn't. Despite what little you had, you didn't give up. You really did help me. And I would never give up on you. Don't ever forget that, okay?"

I looked at the floor. "…So you heard my song, huh?" I felt a rock in the pit of my stomach.

Steven slumped down. "I wasn't going to say anything…"

I grabbed my forearm. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I meant to tell you early on, but then the episodes stopped, so I didn't have any need to tell you, and then Stevonnie came into the picture, and I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what, so I said I'd tell you later, because I didn't want to ruin the mood, and-"

Steven interrupted me. "Connie, I don't blame you!" He had a look of exhasperation on his face. "What the heck are you apologizing for? Really?"

I was taken aback. "I thought you'd be angry I never told you…"

"I don't blame you for hiding that. Like you said, it wasn't on purpose. What's important is that we move forwards. That we know, _now_. Not that I didn't use to know. That I can help."

I nodded. I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye so Steven wouldn't see it. From happiness or sadness, I wasn't sure. But when I wiped it away, I was definitely happy. "You know what I think?" I said.

"…What?"

"Didn't you say golf quest was super overrated?"

"Not here it isn't," I said with a wink.

Steven smiled. "Room, I want Golf quest, but as an action RPG!" The cartridge appeared in his hand.

"Really? An action RPG?"

"I thought you'd like it that way."

"I was thinking it was more of a 2d or 3d platformer…"

"But then it wouldn't be golf quest anymore!"

The two of us stared each other down angrily. Then, we burst out giggling.

Man, it was good not having to worry about whether or not you were trapped forever.

* * *

The two of us spent the rest of the day having fun, forgetting we were trapped here. Just enjoying the world of endless possibilities.

I guess I couldn't speak for Steven, but personally speaking, I was done with all the heavy stuff. After all that, I just wanted to have fun.

I don't mean to brag, but if we were taking a 'fun' test, we aced it.

Tomorrow, I didn't know. I guess we would have to talk about what happened. But today, I was having fun. That was all I cared about, for then.

When it was time to get to bed, I didn't think of getting trapped in a sea of clouds, no notebook in sight. I remembered us messing around, pretending to be superheroes, doing all the stuff I could only dream of outside of here. Because here, there were no limits. I thought of those memories, and before long, I was fast asleep…

* * *

 _A/N: I think this is what this story's going to be like from chapter to chapter. Crazy scenarios only possible in a world like this, each one with individual character development and small mysteries, all feeding into an overarching plot and mystery._

 _Why am I saying this in this author's not of all things? I don't know, I guess, before this, I was having trouble building an identity for the story before this chapter in my head. My other stories, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them, I had somewhere I was going with the story. It's surprisingly hard to get a plot out of a world where anything is possible! Even if I had an overarching plot planned, it was hard getting there without it being a slog. Anyways, I think I know where this is going, now. That's all I wanted to say._

 _Post a review._

 _So, next up on the adgenda… what? You expected me to say more about asking to review? I'm famous for my insane ways to ask for reviews? Nonsense._

 _Wait, you literally didn't say that? I put those words into your mouth?_

… _Oh._

 _As I said, um, I guess the next thing on the agenda is, I'm trying to add added character to the characters in the story… if that makes any sense at all. What I'm trying to say is, I, personally, find that it would be super boring to make a story like this without any character development. Like, if the characters are forced to stay the same as in the show for hundreds of thousands of words, what's the point of reading anything, am I right? Long story short, I try to make my characters change, and add some headcannons into the mix, too._

 _Next time… Well, I don't have any more big story plans until day eight, so I think it'll be a montage of days 3-7. Some finalization on the stuff introduced this chapter, some new stuff, and we'll be building intrigue all the way. I'll see you then!_


	4. Days 3-7: Life in a Limitless World

Days 3-7: Life in a Limitless world

I was woken up when the sky turned on.

I rubbed my eyes and looked over to see an embarrassed Steven. "You're awake, are you?" I said.

He held up his hands. "It's not what it looks like! I asked for a reading light, that's all!"

"And the room interpreted 'reading light' as 'turn on the sky?'

He nodded.

I sighed. "Well, I guess now's as good a time as any to be getting up."

I stretched, and grabbed my notebook out of the clouds. _You know, I should make somewhere to put this rather than the cloudy floor,_ I thought. But that could wait.

I was hungry.

I drew myself a waffle, syruped up and delicious. In fact, I added those adjectives to the actual book.

Steven summoned a table, and we ate together. He made himself a pile of pancakes. Maybe next time I could experiment with some fancier foods, but for now, waffles and pancakes worked.

I looked around at the cloudy backdrop. It was nice, just sitting and eating, no danger to our lives.

Steven didn't seem to share the sentiment. Throughout the meal, he seemed oddly uncomfortable. I swallowed my food and said, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Steven said. "This isn't the time."

"Come on. We have plenty of time, here. Infinite amounts of it, really."

"Don't you want to enjoy the meal?"

I shrugged. "Not like the food's going to go cold. We can always wish it to heat up again." I propped my legs up on the table. Hey, my mom wasn't here to tell me to take them off.

No matter how much I wished she was.

Steven broke through my train of thought with a sigh. "It's about… well, it's about yesterday. I know, we just goofed off and stuff, but… we need to talk."

I nodded slowly. I knew it was coming.

"What do you want to know?" I said, in a serious tone.

Steven still seemed unsure. "Are you really okay with talking about this?"

I thought to myself, Steven was right, I should've been freaking out. Steven discovered the one secret I had been keeping from him for two years. I told myself, I should've been having a full-on panic attack. But strangely enough, I felt okay. No, I felt better than okay. I felt great! I gave him a strong smile. "I'm fine, Steven. We spent yesterday goofing off because I was preparing for this conversation. Trust me, I'm ready for your questions. What do you want to know?"

Steven finally met my eyes. "So… what's going on in your head, then?"

I shrugged. "I mean, you've been in there a few times. You've experienced one of my freak-outs, right? I know, it was a few years ago, now, but do you remember when we first fused, when we went to that party, and when we started to unravel? That was because of me. That happens, sometimes. My brain is fine, everything is going okay, and then it decides everything isn't fine and I have a panic attack. It's gotten better the past few years, but… well, it wtill happens, from time to time."

Steven looked off into the distance, probably remembering what that felt like, two years ago. He shivered. "You had more of those?"

I chuckled. "For a while, they were happening every other day."

Steven shook his head. "How could you deal with that?"

I looked off into the distance, a little sadness finally piercing into my emotions. "You get used to it."

"But… how is that even possible? You're always so nice, so gentle, so strong-willed. How could…" he trailed off.

"How could I have such a rocky interior? That's what you were going to ask?" Steven nodded silently. "Honestly, I don't really know. Just because my neutral is happy doesn't mean I can't lose control sometimes. With all those years of my life with parents who don't always care for my well-being, and my only friends being the characters between the pages of books, well… I guess I started to form an inferiority complex, and that transformed into depression."

"But… you met me! I was your friend, shouldn't you have stopped freaking out?

"It all never truly leaves you. Even when you're fine for months, it can always surge back. Like it did yesterday. Though, I did have a much better reason to be freaking out yesterday."

Steven clenched his fists. "I'm sorry, Connie… how could you deal with something like that…" I saw a tear start to form in the corner of one of his eyes.

I shook my head and smiled at him. A bright, sunny smile. "You don't have to be sorry, Steven. Look at me. I'm not crying, there's no need for you to on my behalf! That's behind me, now. I mean, yeah, you can never truly shake depression, but when I'm with you, I forget the person I was before. Yesterday was the first time I've been like that in about a year! Yeah, I used to be a fragile flower, prepared to be crushed at every opportunity the world gave her. Well, now, I'm a fragile flower with a giant pink anime sword!"

I caught Steven by surprise with that one. His look of concern faded. He covered his mouth, trying not to laugh. He tried to hide it with his hands, but he still expelled air from its nose

I walked over and patted him on the back. "See? Now you get how I feel. I'm not sad, not anymore. So, are those the last of your questions?" I said.

Steven gave me a long stare. "You're really fine with this?"

I laughed. "I've been hiding that side of me from you for two years. Fine? I'm ecstatic!"

Steven finally seemed to accept it. "Then… I'm glad you're okay." He wasn't exactly happy, but he had finally admitted to himself that I was going to be okay.

Finally.

Now, I could dig into my waffle again…

* * *

After breakfast, I drew a notebook inside my magical notebook, making sure to note that it didn't have any special properties.

"Don't you already have that one? Why do you need another notebook?" Steven said.

"Yeah, I have that one. But if what if I just want to write or draw? Imagine: I start writing a short story or something, I start a diary of what's been happening to us, and it starts tearing up the world! I just want a plain old notebook!" I paused. "Besides, I had a more specific idea in mind, currently. I wanted to make a list."

Steven stared at me for a few seconds, expecting me to continue. "I suppose you want me to ask, you, o _f what?_ "

"Why, I'm glad you ask- well, I'm glad you half-asked, anyways. I wanted to make a list of long-term goals."

"Um… get out of the room, for starters?"

"Of course, but we've tried that. In like, 50 different ways at this point. Of course, that's still our number-one priority. But that seems like it won't happen soon, yeah?"

Steven sighed. "I suppose so. I'm still shocked that the room would trap us here at all…"

"Who knows, maybe it's possessed by some evil spirit. We don't know at this point. What's important is, we should form some shorter term goals. If we can't get out, I think our first order of business is to get a message out to the outside world, that we're in here! Maybe, if we can't get out, the gems might be able to open the door from the outside!" I opened my notebook, and penned that in: 'get note to outside world.'

Steven nodded. "That makes sense. What other ideas do you have?"

I cocked my head. "Other… ideas?"

"The page is labelled list of ideas, plural. So, I guess I assumed you'd have more than one."

"Um… that was the only one I had come up with."

"…Then why do we need to write this down, again? It's easy enough to remember one thing, right?"

"We might find more goals if we put our heads together. Who knows?"

"Fair enough…" Steven said. I think he was flustered by my oddly upbeat behavior for being in such a downbeat place. I guess I was just feeling good today.

* * *

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful compared to the beginning of it. We added a few more short-term goals, like the next step of sending a message, 'get a direct link with the outside world (phone, walkie-talkie, etc),' and 'figure out why notebook is supercharged.' And, of course, the big one: Escape.

We also got the pack of supplies I had lost in the whirlwind back. Plenty of emergency food, water, first-aid, and other, more magical supplies, like a duplication ray and such. Steven had the idea to sew the bag into our clothes so it wouldn't be taken away again. We both now had what equated to bottomless pockets, so the bag wouldn't be blown away again.

Next on the schedule, we tried to escape with no avail. There was little we hadn't tried yet, anyways. Of course nothing came out of it.

And then… we just had fun. We hadn't given up, but we figured, if we were stuck here, we might as well not act as if we aren't stuck in the coolest place on earth.

We reenacted the entire Sprit Morph Saga, as best we could remember them. Hey, we had to make up for the _first_ time we tried to reenact it, right? And we decided to make it into a full-on movie. We had the room film us as we reenacted the books, scene by scene. Of course, any monsters we summoned were just holograms, just so they wouldn't, you know, try to kill us.

The room's performance was smooth the whole way through. It didn't overload once, not even when we summoned some of the bigger battles, with thousands on either side! I noted that we'd have to test the room's limits the next day. The room was a lot more powerful than Steven had described it. It was a bit disconcerting, really. The room was getting stronger and stronger, that wasn't a good sign.

And before we knew it, just as we were finishing with the last few scenes, (With a mix of the old and fan endings) we were getting tired.

The day went by extremely quickly, and, for once, without a hitch.

For the record, I did summon a table, and I did set my notebooks on it. Please make note of this incredibly important detail.

I had another easy night's sleep. I decided, this room was worth getting trapped in, it had finally taken the weight that was depression off my chest.

I closed my eyes and had a pleasant, dreamless sleep.

* * *

\- - -Day 4- - -

I was woken up by a gunshot in the middle of the night.

My combat senses kicked in. I grabbed Rose's sword from my bottomless pockets and looked from side to side frantically. Was Steven in danger? What was going on?

I glanced over at Steven's bed, and he was still fast asleep. Then… what was firing at us?

Was I dreaming, then? It seemed to real at the time.

I let out my breath. I guess I jumped to conclu-

 **BANG!**

Another gunshot rang through the room, clear as day. I lost all of my courage, jumped back into my bed, and cowered beneath the sheets. Who was shooting at us? I stayed silent.

Steven was still fast asleep. I didn't want to draw attention to us. There couldn't be any

I waited 5, 10, 15 minutes. Nothing more. Just radio silence.

Whoever was firing on us was gone.

I let out the breath I felt like I had been holding for all that time, even though I knew that was impossible.

Before I got to bed, I flipped the normal notebook open to the 'mysteries' page. And I wrote in, "Two gunshots."

It took me another hour to fall back asleep.

* * *

"Connie?" I heard a voice calling my name.

I rubbed my eyes. "…Not now mom, I'm tired…"

"Connie, your mom isn't here."

My eyes opened, and I saw the dark, cloudy skies surrounding us. And I remembered that I was trapped, so close, yet so far away from home.

The realization struck me like a ton of bricks. I felt angry, sad, confused, all kinds of emotions all at once.

Then I was back. I remembered everything.

"Connie? Are you okay?" My face had flashed a hundred emotions.

"Yeah, I'm okay. You just… surprised me. I was hit by the fact I might never see mom again."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!" he said quickly. "But… you've been sleeping for 2 hours."

"I had a bad night, okay?" I was still hit by my sudden grief. Even if I'd thought about it before, it'd never come at me like… like that.

Then, I remembered, what had kept me up, and I realized I had more pressing issues to worry about.

"I'm sorry for waking you, but really, we need to coordinate our sleep schedules better. I was afraid to summon even a small amount of light in case the room decided-"

"Steven, shut up and stop nagging me. I have something important to say. In the middle of the night, I heard something."

Steven lost his mild joking tone. "…What was it?"

"Two gunshots. At least."

"…What?"

"So maybe don't nag me for no reason."

"I repeat, what?"

"I woke up in the middle of the night, hearing a gunshot. I don't know how many didn't wake me up, but that one did. And then, maybe 30 seconds later, I heard another one."

Steven had questions, so I answered them the best I could.

He asked if the bullets had nearly missed us, to which I didn't have a definitive answer. The two of us checked everything we had made. There weren't any bullet holes, anywhere. If the shots were aimed at us, they missed horribly. We couldn't even find the bullets.

By the end of our search, we more confused than anything else.

"This doesn't make sense," Steven said. He started pacing across the floor.

"Tell me about it," I said.

"The room hasn't tried to attack us before. It had plenty of chances, too. If it wanted us dead, it could just starve us out, right? And if it wanted to shoot us, you'd think it would have a better aim…"

"Yep."

"Could it have been trying to scare us? That might make sense. The room made the sounds of a gunshot to try to get us to conform."

"Sounds plausible."

"Or, what if something we made earlier, like during reenactment, we forgot to poof into clouds, and it became evil!"

I froze. "I hadn't even thought about that one…"

Steven glanced to me. "You've already thought about all this?"

"I told you I had trouble sleeping. What else would I be thinking about?"

Steven gasped. "I have an idea."

"An… idea?"

"I think I might know how to make sure, if we did make something evil, to make sure it won't reappear."

"I'm listening…"

"I don't care if you're listening, I want the room to be. First off, hold your two notebooks." I obliged. "Room," he said, "I want you to poof everything we aren't either wearing or holding _right now!_ "

The beds and table disappeared. (RIP table, days 3-4) Anything the room, or maybe even we might have summoned to kill us was gone now.

We both let out a sigh. Whatever it was, it wouldn't likely attack again.

If only I convince the pit in my stomach…

* * *

Next, of course, we compiled theories as to why the gunshot occurred, but we didn't have any solid proof or anything.

Most of the rest of the day was pretty standard, but when it came time to try to break out, for the first time in 3 days, something happened.

"I had an idea," Steven said. "Remember yesterday, when we were stretching the limits as to what we could summon when we reenacted the battle of toth-roa? I was thinking, what if we stop limiting ourselves. Maybe, if we could overload the room's circuits, it wouldn't know what to do and let us out! That's what happened the first time I came in here."

I tried not to get my hopes up. But this was the best idea I'd heard trying to get out since just after we found out we were trapped here. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. "Let's do it."

"I'll try summoning beach city. That easily overloaded the room last time. Careful, okay?" I nodded. "Room, I want you to summon a full-sized copy of beach city!"

It summoned before us, just as Steven suspected. We were in the middle of the boardwalk. Nothing bad was happening, not yet. There weren't any people, though.

Steven scowled. "Room, summon the citizens of beach city, too, please!"

And it did. Suddenly, beach city residents started milling the town.

And unlike the time Steven described to me when he came here the first time, they weren't acting weird at all, like normal people. They even interacted with each other. Peewee's dad was yelling at him. Kiki was delivering a pizza off in the distance.

Steven approached one of them, confused. Mayor Dewey. "Hello? Um, how are you doing, ex-Mayor Dewey?"

Dewey frowned. "Can't you see that I'm busy? I'm preparing for the next election!"

"You are aware that isn't for another few years, right?" I said.

"You can never be too careful!" he stormed away from us. The resemblance was uncanny. If I didn't know for sure this was fake, I would confuse it for the real thing."

"This isn't working…" I said.

Steven wasn't giving up just yet. "Okay, room, enough of that. Get rid of beach city, summon the infinity fair! Infinite shopkeepers throughout all of space and time." He then muttered to himself, "Build that, room…"

But… it did it. Beach city disappeared, and the room instead summoned a fair, stretching endlessly in both directions. It was exactly as I imagined it. Up and down the horizon, it lasted forever. It was impossible. Where was it getting this power? It used to short-circuit when Steven spawned Beach city, why was it able to summon a literal infinity?

I looked closer. Okay, it wasn't quite infinity. There was a lot of copy-pasting. But still, why was it getting smarter, too? Not only powerful to, for back of a better word, _render_ all of this, but smart enough to make up for its limitations with copy-pasting?

Steven stomped the floor in anger. This should've worked, but we were cheated. The room somehow boosted its own power. It wouldn't give in.

"Room," Steven said, "Bring us back to the clouds already."

And just like that, we were back where we started.

I opened the page of the notebook I labelled "Failed ideas," and with all the other ideas we'd tried, I wrote in 'overload room.'

The nest 30 minutes were mostly spent sulking. The first idea I had any hope for failed.

We got happier after a while, of course. There was infinite entertainment, here. We could do anything. But I couldn't shake the feeling that there really wasn't a way out.

But I remembered my promise. We would get out of here. I steeled my resolve. There were other ideas we hadn't tried, I was sure. We hadn't thought of overloading the room before that point, there were other things I was sure we hadn't tested.

When it was time to get to bed, I had a bad night's sleep. Thinking about the gunshot, wondering if there was a way out at all.

* * *

\- - -Days 5-7- - -

Very little happened for the next 3 days. We started getting into a routine, really. Wake up. Eat. Spend about an hour brainstorming ways to reach one of our goals, short- or long-term, fail. Play around for a bit. Eat. Maybe talk a little. Maybe brainstorm a little more. Have some more fun, but feel bad about it. Maybe do a little combat training. Eat. Maybe do some research. Some more packing in case we're left without any way to create stuff. In case I'm again left without a notebook, make more backup options Make our clothes have added features on them, so even if we lost everything, we'd still have our clothes. Attempt and fail to enhance our own bodies. And then, get to bed. I changed beds and tables ever night, just for the heck of it. One night, a waterbed, because I'd never been in one before. The next a mattress made from the softest material known to man.

After day two, nothing really went wrong with our 'wants.' Everything we asked for we got without a complaint from the room. Days just came and went. It was fun, sure. We tried out some fun VR games, I played god for a virtual city, we plugged our brains into the matrix a la Sword Art Online (which went surprisingly well, all things considered). But we made no progress.

At the end of the seventh day, when we were both in bed, I had trouble sleeping again. After an hour or so of laying in bed with my eyes open, I turned to Steven. His back was to me.

"Hey, Steven? Are you awake?" I whispered.

He didn't answer.

"Never mind." I whispered. There wasn't even anybody to talk to.

I heard a voice. "No, I'm awake," Steven said.

I looked over at his bed. He still wasn't facing me. "…Then why didn't you say anything when I asked?"

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"About these past few days. I know you've noticed it, nothing's happened."

I sighed. "At least we're safe right? At least nothing's tried to attack us after the gunshot a few nights ago."

"I don't care about safety. If we get into a routine, it means we're stuck here. Time will start passing us by. We'll lose track of the days."

"Didn't you say that about building a house a few days ago?"

"Well, we didn't build a house, now, did we?"

"Thanks for the reminder! We should do that tomorrow."

Steven finally turned his face to me, and I saw the hint of a smirk on his face. "Oh, quiet, you."

"Really, Steven. Just because we're getting into a routine-"

And the smirk was gone as he interrupted me. "We're still not making any progress! We've been here for 7 days now and we aren't any closer to escape than when we started."

"I know that. Why do you think I'm still awake?"

Steven sighed. "How do you always stay so happy, then? No matter what life throws at you, you manage to keep a smile on your face."

I chuckled. "Well, now you're just giving inaccurate information."

"You sure seemed okay today."

"Um… so did you?"

"Um…" his arguments stopped. "Point taken. I guess I was having fun, but… I guess… I just want to go home. You've always been so calm about all of this. No matter what life throws at you. Even now, you're chuckling and making jokes. I can't do that."

"It's a coping mechanism," I said.

"What?"

"I didn't want people to see my depression. So to mask my true feelings, I started making jokes out of every little thing. So people wouldn't notice that it's just a façade. That's why I always seem so happy, okay? It's because I know how to force a smile. Sometimes it's so convincing even I believe it."

"… Is that all it was, then, a few days ago? When you told me you were fine, that you were okay with your depression, was that just a mask?"

I remembered that time. And I smiled. "Of course it wasn't. Sometimes I force a smile, But at that point in time, my happiness was genuine. I finally told you the truth"

"…Then I'm glad." He smiled.

We were both silent for the rest of the night.

* * *

 _A/N: Hope you like the more segmented style of this one. Just closure for the previous chapter, and then a grab bag of intrigue, comedy, and heartfelt moments._

 _Thank you to all the new followers who joined since the next chapter! I really do appreciate it._

 _And now, a poem._

 _Rainbows_

 _Everywhere,_

 _Very_

 _Irritating, no, very_

 _Exiting!_

 _Wow!_

 _(An acrostic poem, titled, REVIEW. Copyright 2017 MLfan64.)_

 _Any ideas as to what was up with the gunshots? Well, I'm all ears! I'm still interested to hear your theories. Post either a theory or a story concept (of what could possibly happen in the room, like, someone could have given me the concept of 'reenacting the spirit morph saga' to get that bit in the story) and the odds are pretty great that it'll eventually get into the story in some way or another!_

 _Plus, if you can think of a way to get out of the room or fulfill one of the other objectives that I, the author of the story, haven't thought of, I could make it a plot-point. So it just could be up to you guys to get a letter to the outside world! If you can think of a reasonable way for them to get it out of there, I'll likely use it!_

 _Next time: We're kickstarting the overarching narrative! I know, starting the bigger story, a whole 5 chapters in. Whatever. Anyways, see you guys then!_


	5. Day 8: Things Just got Serious

Day 8: Things Just Got Serious

I was once again woken by a gunshot in the middle of the night.

No, not the middle of the night. There was no sense of time here, only bright and dark, and that was determined by only what we told the room to do. I glanced at Steven's bed, and he was awake. So I guess it was the middle of the morning

Another gunshot rang outand I was snapped out of my thoughts. I felt a gust of wind rush by as a bullet whizzed through the weave of my hair. My eyes widened.

Before anything else could attack, a pink sheen appeared in front of me. Steven summoned a pink bubble to protect the two of us. Another shot rang out and a bullet bounced off the reflective surface.

"What's going on?" I said.

"I don't think I know any more than you! Room, light up, now!"

The two of us cowered in the bubble and looked around frantically as the room lit up. I swiveled my head around and, standing just 20 feet away, I met eyes with… something.

It was some sort of four-legged animal, but it's entire body was mechanical, with a shiny silver sheen covering it. It seemed to be some sort of… wolf? If that's what it was, it was the size of a bull! It wasn't very well-built. There was a sheet of metal covering most of its body, but there were pieces missing all over it. A part of its neck, a part of a leg, completely missing. It was like it was only half-finished, the holes in its body revealing a network of gears powering its interior. It's mouth was fixed into a permanent grin. It's eyes glowed silver, and right above then, mounted on its head was a silver revolver, the same color as the rest of it. It was like a half-finished death machine.

The giant metal wolf looked back and forth several times Every time it turned its head, a bullet fired off from the mounted gun, and it jerked backwards. The gunshots were muted by the bubble, but I could still hear them. As the wolf moved, I could hear its joints creaking.

"How did that thing sneak up on you!?" I said.

"It wasn't there 5 minutes ago!" Steven said.

"You mean to tell me it just appeared out of nowhere!?"

"Do you have any other explanations as to how it got here!? We're in a room where stuff appears out of nowhere on a regular basis!"

The wolf's eyes fixated on us, and its glowing eyes narrowed. Five shots fired off in quick succession. Every shot bounced off the bubble, but I heard Steven grunt. The shots were wearing him down.

I grabbed for my notebook, but it was still sitting at the table to my bedside, outside of the range of the bubble.

Despite that, I smiled. This is exactly what we'd prepared for! We had outfitted our clothes with tons of gadgets, just in case I was ever left without my notebook! Rocket boots, grappling hooks, tasers, and-

I was still wearing my pajamas.

All those were in my normal clothes.

Well, crap.

The dog growled, and then a second later fired another three shots at us. Again, I heard Steven grunt as they hit the bubble.

"Are you okay?" I said.

"I'll be fine," he said, grunting as another bullet was fired at him.

I realized he could still talk. "Wait a minute, Steven, what are you doing?" I said. "Poof that thing out of existence already!"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Room, I want you to poof away that robotic dog!"

Nothing happened. The dog kept staring us down.

I growled. If we couldn't poof it away, good old fashioned combat it was.

I glanced over at the notebook. That was the best weapon I had. But right now, it was just out of reach.

"Steven, when I say 'now,' drop the bubble for 2 seconds," I said.

"W-what? No, that's an awful-"

The dog had enough waiting. It howled and fired a round of 9 or 10 shots, all at once. **BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG,** one after the other. Steven had trouble keeping the bubble up. As the last shot fired, the bubble was flickering. I wasn't sure how much longer it could stay up.

Still, I went along with my plan. "NOW!" I yelled.

Steven didn't have time to argue. He dissipated the bubble. The moment the bubble went down, I reached for the notebook and grabbed it, quickly pulling my arms in just before the bubble reformed. It barely deflected yet another bullet.

I opened the book and grabbed for the pen. Except… the pen wasn't there. I frantically glanced back at the table, but no, I hadn't simply missed it. It must have fallen to the floor.

"I'm out," I said. "You have to summon some sort of weapon!"

"I'm a bit busy keeping this bubble up! It takes a lot of concentration!"

"Can you summon me a pen, at least?"

Before he did that, the wolf charged the two of us. The grin affixed on its face made it seem like it was relishing in the battle, even if its true emotions were unreadable. It ran faster than any non-mechanical wolf could, charging us at full speed. It reached out location in 2 seconds and extended its claws. They seemed to be made of broken nails. It reared on its hind legs and clawed at the bubble, which started to flicker again. Steven's face started going blue. "Can't… keep… this… up…" he said.

I scrunched my face up. "You're not giving up, are you? The Steven I know wouldn't be giving up so easily!" I said. I grasped his hand mine. I knew I couldn't lend him my strength to him or anything, but I wanted him to know that I was there for him. Steven took a shaky breath, and the bubble stopped flickering, at least for now. Steven was too busy keeping the bubble up, so it was up to me to come up with a plan, fast. "Now, you repeat after me!" I said to Steven. "Room, launch that wolf back!"

He gritted his teeth. "ROOM, LAUNCH THAT WOLF BACK!"

A wave of energy pushed forwards and the wolf went flying across the room, maybe fifty feet away. It tumbled across the floor, denting its body as it skidded away.

Steven dropped his bubble and gasped for breath. I dropped to the floor and grabbed my pen. It was a notebook and pen rather than a sword and shield, but an effective weapon nonetheless.

The mechanical wolf lifted its now dented body off the ground. As it got up, it growled, and two more bullets fired off. Not towards us, but towards the floor. It was like the wolf could barely control its own weapon.

I told myself, that didn't matter. I flipped open my notebook and drew a crude representation of Rose's sword. The real thing was in the bottomless pockets of my real clothes, which I didn't have time to loot through, so I took the easier option. The sword popped out and I grabbed it by the hilt.

"Good job, Steven!" I said.

"Thanks," he said. "Same to you."

I glanced at the wolf again and growled. "Let's take this thing down."

"Yeah," he said, summoning a shield.

Together, we charged, not letting the giant wolf get a heads-up on us. Steven held his shield, ready to block any bullets that would head our way.

The wolf charged us at the same time, not firing any bullets. It slashed at us with it's rusty-nail claws, but Steven drew up his shield in between us. From beneath it, I swung the sword! And it disappeared from my fingers. The moment the sword touched the wolf, it disappeared into pink clouds, without even an impact. The wolf looked at the sudden clouds, confused. After Steven disengaged his shield, the wolf clawed at them for a second.

While it was distracted, Steven whispered to me, "What happened?"

"I don't know," I said, worried.

"We-we can't attack it?"

"I don't know!"

When I screamed like that, the wolf turned its attention back to the two of us. Steven held up his shield and it fired another bullet at us. The good news was that it didn't have many attack options, just shoot and claw. But if we couldn't damage it, then what did it matter?

Then I saw its dented body. We already _had_ damaged it. "Who cares if we can't attack it directly?" I said. "Just tell the room to knock it back again!"

"Oh, right," he said. He blocked another bullet with his shield. "Room, knock the wolf back again!"

…Nothing happened. We exchanged another uneasy look.

In that instant when we looked away, we looked at each other the wolf charged, giving us only a half a second to react. Steven saw it in time, while I didn't. He pulled up his bubble, just in time. The wolf collided with us at full force. We went flying across the room, maybe a whole 100 meters away. It was a heavy hit. We hit the ground, hard, and the bubble popped on impact. I rolled across the ground, pain eruption throughout my body.

The wolf wasted no time, firing off another few bullets at us. One grazed my leg, and it erupted into even more pain. When the bubble didn't go up again, I knew I had to take charge. I didn't have a chance to look at Steven, but I assumed he had run out of energy. I had the forethought to wrench open my notebook and draw up a brick wall. I didn't write 'normal, but nonetheless it formed a wall in between the wolf and the two of us.

I said, "You okay?" to Steven. I peeked out the other end of the wall to see what the wolf was doing.

The wolf fired a bullet at me and I ducked back behind the wall.

I realized Steven hadn't responded to me. "Steven?" I said, glancing over to him.

His body lay limp on the floor.

I froze.

I heard another gunshot, but it felt so far away. I- I couldn't fight alone. We were a team. He was the one who watched my back. He was the only one who could damage the wolf! How could…?

The wolf jumped out to our left and fired a bullet off. It hit inches away from Steven. On my notebook, I quickly sketched in the wall as if it was turning around, encasing us. It was crude, but the notebook understood. It summoned a wall all around us. I drew in some strengthening braces from the outside.

I looked down at Steven. Was he just out of energy? He was still breathing, that made me breathe a sigh of relief. But even then, I was stuck in a tough spot. I didn't have unlimited time, here. I thought fast. The sword I had made from the notebook had burst into clouds, right? But if I had something from the real world, that couldn't burst into clouds. That would have a good chance of being able to damage the beast! I needed to get a hold of Rose's sword. Unfortunately, that was hiding with my clothes.

The only way forward was through that… thing.

I steeled myself. I told myself, this was for Steven.

I heard a few bullets sound, but none got through the wall. I knew the wolf had to be clawing at it from the outside. I did wonder why the wall was working to block it, not bursting into clouds like the sword, but I was counting my blessings.

I held my notebook before me and waited. The wolf growled and fired off another round of bullets. When I heard the bullets stop, I erased a part of the wall and sprinted out, straight towards the bed, and my original clothing. As I ran, I drew in that part of the wall, sheltering his body.

The wolf didn't even notice me. It kept clawing at Steven's safehouse.

It took me 20 seconds to reach our bed, even in a full-on sprint. I grabbed for our clothes, tucked away in the dresser. I didn't know how much time I had. The wolf hadn't broken through the wall, and it hadn't noticed me yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I opened the dresser and grabbed at the blue dress.

I frantically searched the pockets. Where had I put that sword? Didn't I have it so it summoned when I lifted my left hand? No, that's not it. Was it just in my pocket of holding? I thought so, but why hadn't I made it easier to get?

Digging through the endless pockets, I thought I found a hilt. I reached in… and pulled out a disintegration ray. No, that wouldn't do at all! I glanced back at the wolf. My heart sank. It had actually gotten through a part of the wall. Even though it was reinforced, the wolf was stronger than it. I glanced at my notebook. The wall being erased not of my own volition.

In desperation, I fired the disintegration ray off at the wolf, even if I was pretty sure it wouldn't work. The shot flew across the room, and hit it, right in the head. And it bounced off its metal body. The shot's beam reflected into the very shelter Steven had been hiding in. It melted away into nothingness. The wolf's smile never seemed more genuine as it's prey was left splayed out in front of him, with nothing more to protect it.

It was all my fault.

I could've reinforced it more with my journal, and kept digging, but because I panicked, I was here, 100s of feet away, unable to do anything.

I dropped the dress on the ground. I couldn't draw anything to attack with, there was a good chance they would just burst into clouds on impact. I already checked my clothes, and I couldn't find Rose's sword. There was nothing I could do.

A few tears formed in my eyes. I promised Steven that we would escape this place. But how could he escape if he died before that could ever happen?

My sadness morphed into anger. My legs started moving on their own volition. Armed with nothing but my notebook and pen, and no plan at all, I charged the wolf. I drew two iron rods and bashed them together, trying my hardest to draw its attention. The wolf's yellow eyes glanced over at me, but the gun was still pointed at Steven. Still, I kept making noise, distracting it before it could fire off a fatal shot. I threw them as hard as I could when I was getting closer. They didn't do damage, they burst into clouds before they could make any sort of impact, but it distracted it. Finally, it turned to face me.

I flipped to a new page in the notebook to have more room to draw. The wolf trained it's gun on me. I drew a simple circle, and a shield appeared before me. It fired a bullet and it blocked the shot. It shattered after one hit.

I was maybe 50 feet away.

The wolf growled, and I realized, it was the exact growl it had given every time it fired off more than one shot at once. In my notebook, I drew a spiral, one ring after another. Three shields formed in front of me. Three bullets shattered them.

And then, as I kept running, the wolf's face, it's glowing eyes, it's evil smile, turned to Steven. It held up it's claw, as if threatening, 'step closer, and I'll go in for the kill.' I didn't take it to be so smart, yet at that moment it was like a villainous mastermind.

I was maybe 25 feet away, and I didn't have any more weapons. Whatever I could make would just burst into clouds.

My legs wouldn't stop running.

I squeezed my eyes shut, not willing to witness Steven's last moments.

On its own, my hand slashed my pen along the notebook, drawing a line extending one end of my notebook to the other.

I heard the wolf howl, and a gunshot fire

I wrenched my eyes open, expecting the worst. I saw the wolf, with a cut in it, the exact same direction as my notebook. And Steven was unscathed.

I was 10 feet away.

I drew another line, and another cut formed in the wolf. I didn't know why it was working, but it was. It must have been just an extension of drawing giant objects on the horizon, except using it as an attack.

5 feet, another slash. The wolf recoiled.

And then I was there, between the wolf and Steven, breathing heavily. I had just sprinted 200 meters. But I wasn't letting my own physical limitations get the best of me.

I hoped it would back down at that point. I had the clear advantage. But it wasn't yielding. Even with multiple cuts in it, revealing more of the gears deep inside. It didn't run, it didn't fight. I drew a circle to protect from any bullets fired at us., but it just stood there.

For 10 seconds, I stared it's golden eyes down, neither one of willing to make the first move. If I fought, it would leave me wide open to a counter-strike as I drew. If he fought, I might be able to fight back before it could go in for the kill.

It was the one to strike. Instead of a bullet, it went right around my defenses, lunging at my right side, slashing at my arm. I tried to pull it out of the way, but it was faster than me. It's claws sunk into my arm. I cried out in pain and the notebook dropped to the floor. Before I had time to process the pain, the wolf lunged again. I didn't have time to think of a plan. I slashed my pen through the air like a sword, with my only thought being that if it got through me, Steven was next. I didn't think for a second it would work, but it was the only plan I had.

So it was news to me when a slash formed across the wolf's metal hull and it was knocked backwards.

I stared at the wolf. And I narrowed my eyes. It had thought it had taken away my weapon. But it had just given me a better one.

I slashed the pen across the air, and another deep cut appeared in the wolf's hide. It flinched backwards again. I smiled.

The wolf made its telltale growl. I twisted my pencil in a circle, to form a shield to block them… and nothing came out. The pencil couldn't draw anything, just slash, like a sword. In the split second I had before it fired, I hit the floor. The bullets whizzed over my head.

I growled. Enough playing around. With a weapon like this, I had already won. I had no reason to prolong the fight.

I levelled my pencil at the wolf, and slashed. Then I did it again. I slashed the pencil again and again, not caring about form, just raw strength. With every slash, it got weaker and weaker. It staggered backwards, but I didn't let up. This wasn't some dog. It didn't have a soul, it was just made from clouds.

I stabbed one final time with my pencil, and the wolf flew backwards. It skidded down the cloudy floor. As it slid across the floor, the last of the chunks of its hull broke away, revealing the interior in its entirety. Just a mess of rapidly failing spinning gears, already falling apart.

The wolf once again struggled upwards, pieces of it falling off. I grabbed the notebook off the floor, just in case it tried anything. It's legs, once shining like the sun, were now dulled. It looked me in the eye, and I looked down the barrel of its weapon. It growled and fired off one last bullet. I hastily drew a circle in between it and me. I don't know if either one would've blocked the shot. But instead of hearing a 'bang, I heard a 'click.' It was finally out of bullets.

The wolf's yellow eyes faded to black. The wolf's metal body dissipated, not into clouds, but into nothing at all.

Or… almost nothing. Right there, floating in the center of it the defeated foe, there was an orange gemstone, floating in the air. Like… like the ones that spawned when we defeated a gem mutant. I reached out my hand to grab it, but I was too far away. After floating in the air for just a second, the gem dropped like a rock. When it hit the ground, a million cracks formed across its surface, and it burst into fine pink powder. A bright wind blew by, and the particles blew into a cloud of dust, which mixed with the rest of the clouds of Rose's room. In just a few seconds, the last remains of the wolf's gem were just clouds floating in the room.

I collapsed onto the floor. It was finally over. Never mind the looming mysteries, it was finally over.

After a minute or so of lying on the floor, I got back up. The most important thing was that Steven was still unconscious. I grabbed my notebook off the floor and went up to Steven's passed out body. For now, I would protect his body, I could protect him, until he woke up. I could worry about the whys and hows later. If there was one enemy like that, there might be others. And currently, he couldn't protect himself, while I had the one weapon that could. I picked him up and placed him in his bed, and I changed into my jacked-up clothes. I summoned Rose's sword. And then I stood by his body, protecting him.

Despite my damaged shoulder, despite my bruised body, no monster would touch him as long as I was here.

* * *

 _A/N: And, here's the chapter I've been building to. Hope it's as good as I've been making it seem to be! I like making big fight scenes, but not if I don't deserve them or have good reason for them. So I hope this was cool and/or deserved. Honestly, I think it's pretty decent, but I don't know for sure._

 _And say hello to the first hints of the big plot! I'd love to hear you guys' theories about where the wolf came from. It's always nice hearing future plot ideas, and especially theories!_

 _Wait… this is where I beg for reviews, isn't it? ...Huh. Well, I got nothin'. Maybe next time. Review the thing, I guess. Make sure to fave and follow to show your appreciation! And it comes with the bonus that you won't miss the next chapter!_

 _And finally, next time! I've been getting a lot of requests for a chapter detailing what's happening outside of the room. So, that's next. We'll see what's been going on with Greg, the Maheswarans, and the gems over the last eight days. What, you wanted to see if Steven and Connie were okay? Well, then you shouldn't have asked for an outside world chapter! ^_^ See you guys then!_


	6. On the Outside: 1

On the Outside: 1

I floated in an endless pink space. The last thing I remembered was putting up my bubble to protect Connie. The metal wolf hit us, and then… and then what? Did I pass out? Was this heaven? No, I wasn't dead yet. But I needed to wake up! Connie needed me! I concentrated as hard as I could. But my mind was drifting. Before long, I forgot of the circumstances that lead me here. Where… where was I?

A shapeless figure appeared before me, beckoning me.

I reached for it, but I was floating. No matter how much I flailed my legs, I couldn't walk towards it.

The figure faded away, and I saw a window into the beach house. As in, I saw into the place I called home for so many years.

I saw myself.

I watched on as Connie walked into the temple, holding hands. Pearl was cleaning the place when they walked in.

Connie cleared her throat. "We're back!"

Pearl swiveled her head towards the voice. "Connie!"

She scratched the back of her neck. "As I said, I'm back…"

It was the day we got trapped there. The day after the two of us had reconvened after Kevin's party. I had already told them Connie was my friend again, but it was the first time Pearl had seen her since we got back together.

I tried to scream out, to stop them from going in. But I was just a bystander. They couldn't hear me.

Pearl ran over and hugged the two of them. I remembered the sheer force of the hug. "Oh, I am so glad you're friends again! I was afraid the two of you would never-"

"Stop it! You're choking us!" My past self said.

"Oh, sorry," Pearl said with a blush. She set them down. "Still, I am so glad you two were finally able to make up. Should I cook something up to celebrate?"

"No, really," The other me said, "We're fine. We were coming here because Steven suggested we go to Rose's room…"

Pearl's face darkened. "Are you sure you want to go in there?"

"We'll be fine!" The past self said. "The worst the room's done was misunderstand me from time to time. It's not going to hurt us or anything."

Pearly was still uncomfortable. "Just… be safe, okay?"

The other me grinned, not knowing the terror that would soon come to me. "Oh, thank you! We'll be out in an hour or so, I promise!" Steven said as they walked into his room.

"Be careful!" Pearl said. She looked on as Steven tapped on his gem and the two of them giggled and ran into the room.

As the past me left the room, the current me's mind got melted inwards. I didn't see the room. I _was_ the room. I saw into everyone in it's mind. Steven faded, I started living out the experiences rather than watching them. I was omnipotent in that room and that room alone.

Pearl sighed. She knew, she should be more accepting. The two of them were growing, they could take whatever was thrown at them.

She kept working.

* * *

Pearl kept an eye on the clock. An hour later, she wasn't worried, of course. When kids say an hour, in general, they don't always mean it.

She started getting worried an hour fifteen minutes later.

She started getting terrified an hour thirty later.

She knew, there was nothing she could do about it. Only Rose could ever open her room. But she couldn't keep thinking something had gone horribly wrong.

Finally, an hour and fourty five minutes after they first walked in, the door to the temple opened.

Pearl bolted upwards. Man, they were going to be in for it when they-

It wasn't them. It was Garnet.

Pearl slumped down again.

"What's wrong?" Garnet said.

"I-it's nothing," Pearl said.

"Okay," Garnet said. She begun walking towards the warp pad.

"No, wait!" Pearl said. "It's not nothing. Steven and Connie said they'd be out an hour ago."

"Oh, so they got back together?" Garnet said.

"What? Yeah, they got back together. But forget that, something's wrong! They went in there 2 hours ago!"

Garnet turned to her. "They went where?"

"Rose's room! They went in there and they haven't come out! What if they're in danger!?"

Garnet turned and looked at the door. "You let them go in there!?"

"It's been docile lately, okay?"

"It took Rose 50 years to get a hold of it!"

"Do you think I don't know that! They were so happy, though! I didn't want to ruin it!"

"I'm going in."

"You can't do that!"

"What, you're going to stop me?"

"No, I mean it's physically impossible! You've tried it before!"

"I'll see about that," Garnet said. She lit up her gems and marched into the temple.

"Garnet, wait!" Pearl yelled. But the door had already shut.

She almost ran in after her, but she felt she needed to wait for Steven to come back.

Another thirty minutes passed. The door lit up again, and Amethyst walked out of the room.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Pearl said, efen more scared then before.

"Gees, Pearl, didn't know you hated me that much."

"Shut it, Amethyst. They're still not back yet!"

"Wait. Who's not back yet?"

"Steven and Connie! They went into Rose's room 2 hours ago!"

"Oh, that's all?"

"No, it's closer to two hours thirty minutes, now!"

"Geez, Pearl, chill. You were freaking out when he was in there for ten minutes the first time!"

"Well, you were, too!"

"I'm just saying, how many times have you overreacted when Rose or Steven has been a little late."

"This time, it's different! It's not just me! When I told Garnet, she started freaking out!"

"…Garnet did?"

Pearl slumped down. "I'm afraid… she's seen something. In the future. That something's gone horribly wrong."

Amethyst stared at her for a while. "Where is she right now?"

"She's in the burning room, I think. Trying to get into Rose's room."

Amethyst ran into the temple, leaving Pearl alone in the beach house once again.

She could do nothing but wait. She didn't want to be gone when they arrived!

Or, rather, if they arrived…

Another thirty minutes passed. It was beginning to get late.

Another 30 minutes passed.

And another.

Pearl began to worry that the room had been swallowing anyone that walked in it up.

The door opened again. Garnet and Amethyst were walking side by side. "I don't understand it," Amethyst said. "Why wouldn't Rose connect her room to the rest of ours!? The heart flows to every room in the temple, doesn't it?"

Garnet was silent.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Pearl said.

The two looked over at her and flinched. "Hey, are you okay, Pearl? What's wrong?" Amethyst said.

Pearl cocked her head. "Wrong?"

"You're crying!"

She was even more confused at that point. She felt at her face and sure enough, felt a few tears. She thought she had been keeping herself pretty calm, she hadn't even noticed it.

"It… it's nothing," she said, even though she knew exactly what was wrong. The two of her looked at her, concerned. "Really, you don't have to worry about me. We should worry about Steven, right?"

Garnet's face darkened. Amethyst gave her an uneasy look. "She's been like this for a while…"

Pearl's eyes widened. "No. No, that's impossible. Garnet, please tell me. Say you can see them getting out. It has to be nothing. Tell me it's just going to be a few hours, and then they'll be free. There has to be one singular future while they'll escape!"

Garnet clenched her fists. "I… I…"

The phone started ringing. Everyone slowly looked over at the phone. Pearl stared at it for a few seconds. The only people who ever called were Steven and Connie, who were still in the room… and the Maheswarans.

Pearl was the one to grab the phone, with shaky hands. "Hello?"

"Oh, hi, Pearl!" Connie's mom said. Her voice was the most upbeat Pearl had ever heard it.

"Um… hi…" she said again. She had no idea what to say.

"I'm just wanted to say, that, I'm sure she's having a ton of fun over there and all, but could you tell Connie it's time for dinner?"

"Um…" She glanced over at Garnet, her eyes pleading her to say they were alright. Garnet looked away.

"I know, we don't want to interrupt. We're both so excited that she's out of what she was going through for so long! If you really want, you guys could eat over there, but-"

"I can't do that!"

The words hung in the air. "…What?"

"They're missing. We don't know what's happened to them, I'm not going to lie to you. You need to come over right now. This isn't something to say over the phone. Something's going on, and you need to know about it."

"What… what? What did you do to my daughter!?"

"I didn't do anything. But she's not dead, I promise you. Still, there's something important going on that isn't best talked about over the phone. Get your husband, and get over here, now."

The voice on the other end of the phone took a few deep breaths. "Okay. I'm coming over. You'd better have a good explanation for this."

"Thank you for being so understanding."

Pearl hung up the phone.

Garnet and Amethyst had their mouths hanging wide open.

She pointed to Amethyst. "What are you doing just standing there? You, call Greg. I know you have his number. Tell him to come over here, right away. Don't say anything until everyone's here."

Amethyst shook herself off and nodded nodded. "Right." She ran over to the phone and started dialing.

She pointed to Garnet. "You, keep working to find a way in. You might find something."

Garnet hesitated, then nodded. "Okay." She ran into the temple.

Pearl started running towards the door to the temple as well. Amethyst, on the ninth number dialed, said, "Where are you going?

"I have research to do."

Just as she went into the door, Amethyst said, "Wait!"

"What's wrong?"

"G-good job taking charge."

Pearl's face darkened. "This has happened before. Some five thousand years ago."

She sprinted into the temple.

Amethyst was left alone in the beach house, thinking over her words. This was all a bit beyond her. Whatever Pearl was describing, she wasn't there for. And this day wasn't supposed to be so complicated! She knew the threats looming over her head from the diamonds and all, but the last few weeks had been so quiet.

They had to be overreacting, right? Come on, sometimes you might get distracted in a room where anything is possible. It had only been a few extra hours. Why did they seem so afraid of something… specific?

She dialed the last number and called up Greg.

* * *

Greg arrived first, a bit panicked. "What's going on that's so important you couldn't tell me over the phone!?"

"I dunno. Something to do with Steven and Connie."

"You said you needed me to be here as soon as possible!"

"Look, I have specific instructions to not tell you anything until everyone gets here."

Greg collapsed onto the sofa. "I hope you didn't get me all worked up for nothing. Actually, I guess I do hope you got me worked up for nothing. Nothing… happened to Steven, right?"

"He's still alive."

Greg let out a deep breath. "That's a relief."

The mood settled down. The next person to come into the room was Garnet. Amethyst looked at her with hopeful eyes. Garnet said nothing, the sunglasses blocking her eyes. Amethyst slumped down.

The next people to walk in were the Maheswarans. "What happened to our daughter!?" Connie's mom said.

Greg stared at them. "You didn't say anything about Connie being involved!"

"I _actually_ did," said Amethyst.

"And what's Greg doing here?" Connie's dad said.

"People, calm down," Garnet said. "I can't tell you there's no reason to panic, but before you do so, please, listen to exactly what's wrong. Pearl will be back soon."

The room settled down a little. Everyone waited for Pearl in baited breaths.

And finally, Pearl arrived.

She walked out, a dark look on her face. She slowly walked into the room, like a mourner at a funeral. "I'm sure you're wondering why you're all here."

"Yes!" Greg said. "I've been worried sick!"

"I didn't want to talk over the phone," Pearl said, "this was something that needed to be said in person. I'll start with the facts, then. 3 and a half hours ago, Steven and Connie went into Rose's room in the temple."

"What's Rose's room?" Connie's mom said.

"We… don't really know," Garnet said.

"I think she just wanted to know what it was in general, Garnet," Amethyst said.

"Oh. Then it's just a room that only Steven can access, where you can craft just about anything just by saying you 'want to get in.'"

"Ahem," Pearl said. "As I was saying, they walked in 3 and a half hours ago. And they haven't come out since."

"Are they in danger!?" Greg said.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't think so."

"You're telling me you let our daughter go in there!?" Connie's dad said.

"The room hasn't done something like this in 5,000 years. It… didn't seem like a bad idea at the time." A few cracks appeared in her psyche.

"Then what's going on? When are they going to get out!?" Greg said.

"If we knew that, I would've told you over the phone." Amethyst said.

"So… you're telling me I might never see Steven again?"

"No, no, I didn't mean that! Last time, it was only a year," Pearl said.

"By the way, could somebody tell me what happened last time?" Amethyst said.

"Wait, step back. You're telling me I might not see my daughter for a year!?" Connie's mom said.

"W-why? Why do you still have a room like this?" Greg said.

"Rose insisted," Pearl said. "And the two of them have gone in multiple times with only minor threats to their lives."

"They've gone in before and were in danger of their lives!?" Connie's mom said.

"…Would it make you feel better if I said no?"

Connie's mom got up. "You had better get my daughter back from that deathtrap-"

"We can't," Garnet said. Her face darkened.

"What do you mean, we-"

"I mean, we can't. I just spent the last two hours looking for a way in. There's no way in from the rest of the temple, and the only way in otherwise is by using the gem specifically tailored to the entrance. The only way back is from the inside."

"Then if they can get out from the inside, why haven't they?" Greg said.

"Well…" Pearl said. "Of course, they might be passed out, or otherwise… well, shattered."

"…Shattered?" Connie's dad said.

"It means killed," Greg said.

Tensions were rising. This wasn't going anything like how Pearl wanted it to. Connie's parents were both horrified, just about ready to explode. Before that could happen, Pearl screamed "WAAAAAIIIT!"

Everyone turned to look at her. "Listen to me. I said it was a possibility. It's possible that Steven and Connie are in grave danger, but that's it. It isn't even probable! You want to know the reason why I took so long? I was just off researching events from 5,000 years ago. We thought Rose was dead way back then, but she wasn't. That mirrors what happened today perfectly. Now, will everybody please settle down. After researching my memories again, I am 99% certain that Steven and Connie are alive and well. So we can all escalate like that again, or you can let me talk."

Everybody exchanged looks. Some of embarrassment, some of worry, some of confusion.

"I'm glad you're all listening," Pearl said. "So… what happened 5,000 years ago. It all started in the middle of the war. Garnet, Rose and I needed to build a base of operations. It took us 5 years to build the temple, and it was quite primitive at that. But it was our haven. Nobody could unlock the doors except her highest lieutenants, so if anything went horribly wrong, there was no way in for any enemy forces. That's how we survived the Diamonds' song, after all. We happened to be in the temple.

"The diamonds' song?" Greg said.

"Save your questions until the end," Garnet said.

Pearl spoke again. "Garnet's room was made for storing captured enemy soldiers. Mine was the armory. And Rose's was made to be the safehouse if everything went wrong. At the beginning, we all worked the same. Hundreds of gems, working together on this monumental task of not only making the temple's locking mechanisms work, but also the rooms themselves. Rose was no exception Then, one day, she came back from a top-secret mission, and she was different. She tore down all the progress that had been made up to that point and started from scratch, working alone. She told only a select few anything at all about how the room worked, and only enough for them to help build it. Like, I heard a gem was brought in to make sure the clouds didn't ever leave the room, Neither me or Garnet were in that few. A week later, it was done. And endless expanse controlled by her gem, that could do just about anything. Through the years, the other rooms underwent change after change, to get better and better, but not that one. And since Rose passed away, nobody currently alive knows how it works."

"What does this have anything to do with being trapped in there for a year?" Connie's mom said.

"She's getting there, honey," Connie's dad said.

"It's important because that's why nobody knows how to operate it, really. No matter how much I asked, she wouldn't give out any information. Due to whatever she used to make it, the room's always been volatile. Over the last few thousand years, it's been tame, but I still remember when…"

"Remember when what?" Amethyst said.

Pearl took a deep breath. "It was just after we won the war, but before we found you, Amethyst. Rose was going in there for no real reason at all. Just to hang out, I guess. And then she didn't come out. Back then, Garnet and I panicked, trying every way we could think of to get in there and save her. But her room didn't connect with the rest of the temple unless she willed it, and due to our security, there was no other way in. A year passed, and we though that she was gone. And then, a year later, she came out of the room like nothing was wrong. We pestered her, but she said nothing. I don't know if it was something as simple as if she told the room the wrong thing, or what. That seems to simple for her to be so tight-lipped about it. No matter how much we asked, she said nothing. It was like she had never gone. The years passed, and I kind of forgot about it. Until now, of course. All because I let the two of them go in."

Around the room, everyone was reacting a little differently. Pearl with disappointment in himself that she let this happen. Greg with hope that Steven might come back to him. Garnet with sadness, remembering the time back then, and seeing the present mirror that. Amethyst, with awe that something like that could happen, and a little bit of fear that she might not see Steven again for a long time. Connie's dad, with a complex mix of doubt, hope, and sadness. And Connie's mom, with pure and utter anger.

She was the one to speak up. "You let her go in there!?"

Pearl flinched. "It was only because…you know what, no. I'm sorry."

She scowled. "What, you're not going to defend yourself?"

"No, I'm not," Pearl said. "The two of them wanted it so badly, and I set aside my personal fears and let them go in. It was an awful decision on my part an I'm sorry."

Steven's mom growled. "Why can't you even let me be mad at you!?"

Everything collapsed into silence.

After 30 solid seconds, Amethyst spoke up.

"So, what now?"

More silence.

"I don't know," Garnet said. But she knew someone needed to speak up. She decided that it would be her. "But just because there wasn't a solution 5,000 years ago doesn't mean we should give up. Now that we all know the facts, we should use that. Maybe there's something we missed thousands of years ago. But we shouldn't give up hope. I know those kids, and if the room somehow trapped them, they wouldn't take it lying down. They would fight it like their lives depended on it! So we should fight it, too. Who's with me?"

The room looked at each other. Everyone was still sad, but the speech instilled a little bit of hope.

"I'm with you," Pearl said.

"We can't just leave them there! I'm in." Greg said.

"Of course, I'm up for saving them from an intergalactic prison! Why would I possibly say no?" Amethyst said.

"It would be foolish to not accept it," Connie's dad said. "Whether I agree or not, it's the best way to save our daughter.

All eyes turned to Ms. Maheswaran. She nervously bit her fingers. "I… I choose-"

* * *

And the vision cut off. Suddenly, I was brought back into my own mind. I was Steven, I was no longer omnipotent, I was once again just watching the room through a window. Mid-sentence, the words stopped.

What was she going to say?

I desperately looked through the window. Maybe she would finish her sentence! But the Temple melted away, and I was left adrift in the sea of clouds. Whatever was showing this to me was gone.

My vision began to go black. I tried my best to commit to vision to memory. It all collapsed in on itself and my mind suddenly sunk into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

 _A/N: Right, the author's note. First off, I hope the use of 'Connie's mom/dad' wasn't too distracting. This is Steven's POV, so I thought it made sense to me that he would call them that. And I hope the third person's okay as well. It's not my forte, so I hope it made structural sense._

 _(Evil laugh here) You want to know why I'm laughing evilly? Because I have decided to subject you to the worst joke you will ever hear! Why? I don't know, because I reworked a previous author's note centering around net neutrality and it had the joke, and I want to keep the joke 'cause I like it._

 _Valerie was a bartender at a the most popular bar in towns. Her shift is going fine, but then, a dog, a balloon, and a farmer walk into a bar. She gets furious. She says, "Can't you read, morons? We don't serve punchlines here!"_

 _I know, it's a terrible joke, as I said, but it's the best I've got._

 _Energetically, I add, thanks to the new followers and favorites, thanks for the old ones, too, and thanks for all the support and reviews! All of it really does mean a lot to me!_

 _Well, next time, we'll… what's that you say? I haven't done some convoluted way to ask for reviews? Look closely at the first letters of every paragraph of the author's note. Makes all the strange words I've been using make a little bit more sense, doesn't it?_

 _So, next time, then. Both sides will have much to report to each other. Connie still doesn't know about the dream, and Steven might be interested to hear about the orange gem! And after that, I'm following through with a suggestion in one of the reviews (Although which one it is, I'm not telling ^_^) See you guys then._


	7. 8(2): Answers, Questions, Courage, Fear

Day 8-2: Answers, Questions, Courage, Fear

Time passed. I kept standing by Steven's body. I couldn't say for how long, time meant nothing here. But it was calculated not in minutes, but in hours.

During that time, little happened. There was no wind, no sounds to speak of. I was just alone with my thoughts.

For the first half an hour or so, I was on high guard. I was preparing for a fight to come from anywhere.

But nothing came. I truly was alone.

My mind started to drift. To what the heck just happened. Always to the same thought, that the gun mounted on the wolf's head was familiar.

No, I couldn't be thinking about that. What if an enemy attacked? Just like Pearl said, focus.

Another thirty minutes or so. No sounds, no tremors from deep beneath the earth. My shoulder started throbbing, from the gunshot wound. I drew up some bandages. I wrapped my arm with them.

Then I had a moment. I realized, magic was a thing. I drew up a healing potion instead. I applied it to my arm, and the pain melted away. You know, magic. It helps.

Another 15 minutes. Again, my mind wandered. With nothing else to think about, I thought back to the fight again. That gun again… and why was there a gemstone in the middle of the wolf? It didn't make sense.

No, I could never know what the gem was doing here. I knew that. We didn't have explanations for anything in the room. Why was I even trying to find logic where there was none?

For some reason, though… no matter how inexplicable everything else was, that gun in specific still felt familiar…

I shook myself off. What was wrong with me? The moment I lost focus, that would be the moment the enemy would strike!

15 minutes more.

Hmm… Could I use some type of potion on Steven like I had on myself? That might give him his strength back! I drew up another bottle and applied it so Steven's gem.

…Nothing.

I sighed. Back to waiting….

15 minutes.

I decided to get off my guard for a moment and set up a few traps around the perimeter. I was preparing for a long haul. I drew up a motion detector (It would go off if anything entered it either living or containing a gem in it besides Steven or myself. If it sensed it, it would disintegrate on sight. I didn't know whether it would work or not, but it soothed my mind).

15 more minutes. And then I heard a groan from behind me. I turned my head towards the bed. Finally, Steven was turning over. I mean, I knew he was breathing, but now at least he was moving.

Hi eyes flickered open. "Where… what…?" he said.

I hugged him.

"Um… hi," he said. I kept hugging him.

I finally pulled out. He looked shocked. "H-how long was I out?"

"Just about 2 hours."

"Only 2? What were you worrying about, then?"

"I didn't know when you were going to wake up! How could I know how close it was!?"

"I'm here now. It's okay." I hugged him again.

We pulled out of the hug and looked each other in the eye. At the same time, the two of us said, "I have so much to tell you!"

We stared at each other. "Wait…" I said. "You have so much to tell me? You were… asleep..."

"I mean… yeah, true, I was asleep. But while I was asleep, I had a dream. Or… no, not a dream. I know it's cliché, bue I had a vision. I saw something you need to hear about."

"You're _sure_ it wasn't just a dream?" I was eager to tell him about the strange orange gem at the center of the wolf. Maybe a bit too eager, to the point I was dismissive of his claims.

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dream. I think the room was showing me what was going on outside of the temple."

"…Did you see my parents?"

He looked serious. Without any further argument, he explained to me everything that he saw. A strange void.. The vision of what exactly happened in the hours after we got lost. And most interestingly, the origin of this room, and how Rose got stuck here so long ago.

And how my parents were worrying about me.

"And then, before she could answer, it all stopped. Her vision was cut off, and I fell asleep… Hey, are you okay?"

I was looking at the ground. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just… my parents. It's nice to hear that they're still fine."

Steven nodded sadly. "Yeah, it was really nice to see the gems again. I guess I wish I could've gotten to talk to them again."

Three gems appeared before us. "What do you want us to listen to?" They said in tandem.

Steven waved his hand to the side, and they disappeared into clouds. "Stupid room," he muttered. But I could see in his eyes, he was still sad about the gems. As I watched him, though, I was a thought suddenly occur to him. "How long did you say I was out for again?"

"2 hours or so," I said. "Why?"

"My vision lasted 3 hours. So, where did the extra hour come from?"

I shook my shrunk a little bit. "I mean, I couldn't time it. Maybe it was 3 hours. It wouldn't make sense otherwise, right?" But somehow, I doubted that.

Steven caught my hesitation. "Do you really believe that?"

Well, what other explanation is there?"

"No. It doesn't make sense. You can't mistake timing like that by a whole hour! And I know you. You're good with time. So I ask again, Where did the last hour come from."

I was stumped again, for a second or so. But I had another thought. "Then the dream went faster. Sometimes dreams go faster than normal, right?" I thought it was a decent explination, right?

Steven stared at me for a few seconds. "…Say that again," he said.

"I said, sometimes dreams go faster than normal. I think I read that somewhere."

A slow smile dawned on his face. "I think you're right."

"Huh?"

"I read it, too. But… I read something else. If what I really had was a dream, then it should've gone by in a lot _faster_ than an hour. Yes, dreams go by faster than reality… but not by just 3 hours in a dream to 2 in life. The article I read said it would go by 12 times faster. Not 3 hours to 2, 3 hours to _15 minutes._ And after that, I fell back asleep, not woke back up. If you put those two facts together, you know we aren't looking for a missing hour. No. We're looking for a 15-minute interval where I was in one spot, and then something drastic changed!

My mouth hung open.

"What?"

"That… makes sense. I'm not used to your ideas making sense when you first say them."

"…I'm not sure if that's a compliment."

"15 minutes, you said. And it cut off violently, the dream didn't just fade away. So when were you in one position for around 15 minutes?"

"That's what I just said. And can we step back to your previous statement, please?"

"No."

"Okay, then, I feel it's my duty to point out that I don't know why you're asking me when I was out for 15 minutes. I was, um, out, remember? You haven't told me exactly what's happened. You would know better than me."

"Oh, right. I guess that'd help us figure out what triggered your dream, too. I guess I'll start when you, um… passed out."

I then told him about the fight, how I ended up beating it, and the strange orange gem on the inside. In my non-reality warping book, I drew a loose approximation of what I thought it looked like. I wasn't sure exactly how long everything took, but it felt like around 5 minutes, total. I couldn't give any concrete times. "Any idea what any of _that_ means?" I said, to cap it all off.

"That the pen is mightier than the sword?"

I staed at him for a good 10 seconds. Then, I facepalmed. "I'm disappointed."

"Come on, it wasn't _that_ bad."

"No, I'm not disappointed in you. I'm disappointed in myself. That would've made a great one-liner when I took down the wolf."

Steven laughed.

After that moment of brevity, it was time to be serious again. "Besides the joke," Steven said, "I don't know what any of it means. I'm trying to keep my thought process to one thing at a time. We don't have enough information to learn much more about how your pen did what it did, or why the gem appeared. But the 15 minutes thing, I feel like we're close. You're sure it was only a few minutes?"

"I can't say for sure. I mean, I was sure it was only 2 hours last time, but this time… Everything kind of blurred together. It felt like five to me, but it could've been anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes, really."

"Then I guess we have to assume the 5 minutes was accurate, meaning there's little there that could've affected the final result. Was there anything else you did that might've done something strange while I was unconscious?"

"Um… I put a healing potion on you, I guess, then didn't leave your side for 15 minutes. I'm not sure why that would mean much. I don't know, could your dream have had something to do with my proximity to you?"

Steven shrugged. "It's a possibility." He didn't have anything more to say.

That conversation kind of petered out. Sure, we threw a few more ideas at the wall. Maybe it was because he had been sheltered under the brick archway. Maybe the dream only cut off because that was all the outside world knew. Maybe it was something else I had done to his unconscious body, maybe it was the effect of one of my traps. But there was no way of knowing anything for sure.

Even though both of us knew everything, we still knew nothing.

* * *

After that, we began preparing for a time when another monster might attack. So we wouldn't find ourselves unarmed again, we made one simple rule. We wouldn't take off our clothes anymore. All of our gear was tied to them, we couldn't afford to take them off anymore. If we wanted new ones, we could shapeshift our old ones into something different (Although, I somehow felt Steven wouldn't have a problem there).

Next, I fixed the biggest fault in it from the previous battle: retrieving my sword. To make that easier, I actually got rid of a lot of featured on the old clothes, so the more important things could be focused on. Quality over quantity. At the end, I had my notebooks, both in easy access, of course. The pen of destiny (as a tentative name) was tied to them, so when I pulled them out, the pen came with. Rose's sword, in my left posket, the easiest thing to get to. And two final things. The hover boots. Because they could clear away clouds and, you know, fly. That, and they'd work, whether or not my foe is immune to notebook-based weaponry. And, finally, the teleportation locket. It was so I could get to Steven, no matter the circumstances, and also portal elsewhere if I needed it. That was it.

Then, I figured it was time to set up the new traps.

"So, how do you think it summoned, anyways?" I said. "The wolf, I mean. If we knew how it summoned in the first place, it would be easy enough to stop it from happening again."

"You mean, to summon one again on purpose," Steven said.

"… That is quite literally the opposite of what I said. I'm sorry, what did you just say about summoning the wolf on purpose?"

"There was a gem in the middle of that wolf thing! I've never summoned one, and you've never drawn one, right? That might've been real. If that's the case, maybe we can talk to them! Maybe they were physical manifestations of the room! And it's a gem! Maybe we can save it"

"Do you really think that's worth the risk? If the wolf had hit us _once_ , we might've died."

"I'm sure we'd be fine. We'd be ready next time! The benefits outweigh the risks."

"Do they, though? If we summoned one again, we would _maybe_ have a chance to talk with them. And besides, that was closer to a corrupted gem than anything else. It attacked, with nothing to guide it except primal instinct. Have you tried talking to one of those things?"

"If it's a corrupted gem and we can't talk to it, we can't save it, then… well, we can always send it back to the temple. "

"…Huh?"

"If we sent them a bubbled gem to the temple, imagine what the gems might think. A gem appears in a pink bubble, proving we're still alive, because I'm the only one who can send bubbles. It might give them hope, that we're still alive."

"…Wow. I should stop arguing with you today," I said.

Steven chuckled. "So, I convinced you to not set out any traps?"

"…How about this. We set up _alarms,_ to go off if there are any gems in our vicinity, aside from yours. So if another monster spawns, we won't blow it up, just warn is it's there."

Steven held out his hand. "Deal." I shook it. I was still shaky on letting a mutant in, but it was like Steven said. It was for the better.

* * *

And then, we tried to move on. Tried to get back into the pattern we used to dread. With the new information, we theorized a little bit more, of course. Added to the list of goals, 'Tame another gem?,' and 'Solve mysteries of day 8.' Outiffted Steven for the doomsday like I had myself. Trained for a bit. More "Productivity." In air quotes because the most productive thing we could really do was theorize on ideas to get out that would fail, with the end result being the exact same as if we had done something "Unproductive."

Finally, after a few hours of trying and failing to be productive, I suggested we play some video games. At that, while he had been upbeat all day, Steven sighed. "I don't know…" he said.

"What's wrong?" I said. I gave him a sly smile. "You getting bummed out about how we're trapped here again? I can only deal with that so many times, you know."

"Should we really be having fun right now?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yep, bummed again. What is it this time?"

"Can you _try_ to take me seriously?" he said. He seemed genuinely angry. "I feel like I'm so close to an answer, now, and you just want to play!? I know I'm missing something. I don't know what, but there's something left that I know can be figured out! I can't just 'play around, not when I'm so close to an answer!"

I sighed. "You've had two hours to think, Steven. Have you been that close that close the whole time?"

"…Maybe."

"Then I somehow doubt that more thinking is going to help."

"Well, you just want to just play around, don't you!? We almost died today! Is playing really what you want to do?"

I sighed again. This time, a lot more exasperated. "AAAAAAND _there_ we go. Come on, Steven, didn't we agree that having fun every once in a while was okay?"

"I don't remember having that conversation. You said that having a routine was okay-"

"Really? We're talking technicalities now? Look, I don't want to fight with you. You were so happy, what happened? The moment I suggest we break up the monotony and play, you're suddenly-"

"Well, sometimes, it feels like you're getting complacent!"

"…Excuse me?"

"I've said it, then! Every single time things are looking horrible, you do this! Right after I was turned invisible, and now this! It's like you don't even care! You might call it just optimism, but it almost seems like you're happy to be trapped here! Even when you were in a fight to the death, within minutes, you're back to this. And now, instead of helping, maybe finding some information that'll help us escape, you want to just goof around. It sure doesn't feel like a 'façade' or whatever at this point. You said you're not giving up, but right now, I can't help but think you are."

I stared at him. "Do you really want to know how I feel?"

He rolled his eyes. "I know, you've told me. You're not as good as you look, it's all just putting on a face, whatever. You told me that yesterday. But every time I see you like this, like you don't even miss the outside world…"

"I said, 'do you really want to know how I feel,' not 'do you want me to tell you.'"

"…Huh?"

"Let me be a little bit clearer, do you want me to _show_ you how I feel?" I opened my notebook and started drawing.

"I… I don't understand. What are you planning on doing?"

Instead of answering, I finished my drawing: An MP3 player. I set it on my bed and pressed 'play' on the song, a medium tempo instrumental song.

It dawned on him what I wanted to do. "You know, you could've just said you wanted to fuse," he said.

"But then it wouldn't have nearly as much spectacle!"

"A-are you sure you want to be doing this? We were just fighting…"

"Isn't that why we should fuse? So we can see the other's viewpoint? If it fails, it fails, but I don't see any harm in trying."

"Point taken." He took my hand.

We'd been doing this for so many years, we never really danced anymore. It was only ever a few seconds, and then Stevonnie was there. But this time, it wasn't right away. We were out of sync with each other to begin with. His steps were more frantic, mine were slower. But over time, our times got more and more in sync.

We might've disagreed sometimes, but we could be united in understanding. Just because we disagreed, it didn't mean we hated each other. My body began to feel light. My feet slid across the floor. I looked Steven in the eye and smiled. My body began to glow, after around 30 seconds. As did Steven's. I held out my hand, to make contact.

Steven's eyes widened. Just before his hand touched mine, he flinched backwards. The glow shattered. I was knocked to the floor. Stopping a fusion like that at such a critical moment is painful. Like a punch to the chest.

I got up slowly. I glared at Steven. But he looked back not with regret or anger, but with fear. My anger changed to concern. "What's wrong?" I said.

"We _can't_ do this," Steven said.

I looked at him for a long time. "But… it was working."

"I don't care if it was working. We can't fuse in here."

My body tensed up. "Why!?"

"The room might collapse. We can't afford the risk."

"What are you talking about?"  
Steven shook his head slowly, sadly. "Didn't I tell you about Sardonyx?"

Sardonyx. The fusion of Garnet and Pearl. Steven always told the stories of what happened during his various adventures. I remembered that one. There was a time when they made a room specifically for Sardonyx, and when they diffused, it completely collapsed.

Thinking it over, I shook my head. "Come on, Steven. They're two completely different cases. There was a room for Sardonyx, that doesn't mean the rooms for Garnet and Pearl vanished. If we fused, nothing would happen. Maybe a room specifically for Stevonnie would appear. Heck, Stevonnie just has Rose's gem, wouldn't this still be our room? I'm almost positive we'd be fine."

"Yes. You're almost positive. But what if you're wrong? What if the room does collapse?"

"Well, I…" I thought about it. "Actually, what if it did destroy the room?" I slow grin creaked onto my face. "It might be an escape plan! If the room collapsed into rubble, there'd be nothing trapping us here anymore! I mean, not to get my hopes up, there's always the chance that I was right and the room stayed completely fine. But if it didn't work, then we would just go on with our original plan!"

I looked at Steven, and he was shivering. "Okay, what's wrong with that idea, then?" I said.

Steven rapidly shook his head. "You've never been there. If it did start to collapse… we wouldn't have a chance to escape."

I was baffled. "You escaped with Amethyst, didn't you?"

"There was somewhere to escape to!"

"Remember when the room collapsed in on itself the first time you were in here and you were kicked out of it? What if that just happens, huh?"

"Why don't you get it, Connie!? If the room did collapse, there's _nothing_ we could do! The room would completely lose control. Even if it once had the ability to make a door, if the room ceased to exist, how would it summon one!? If it collapsed, we would be dead!"

"The odds of that happening are practically nothing. Ninty-nine percent, we're fine. So what's wrong with fusing?"

"It's too dangerous. The benefits aren't worth the risks. End of discussion."

I growled. I started working myself up. "Back with Topaz and Aquamarine, and now this? I knew it, you still don't trust in the two of us. I thought you were over this. I thought we could be friends again. But no, you're back to making choices for the both of us that you _think_ is best. Do you think I'm not thinking about the risks?"

"What?"

"I know it's dangerous. But I'm willing to risk it for a way out. You know what would happen if the room started collapsing with us inside of it? Oh, I don't know. If there was no exit, we could just _diffuse._ And sure, maybe we can't. But I'm at least willing to risk it. Why aren't you?"

"I don't want to put you in danger!"

My anger faded. "You don't think I can take care of myself?"

Steven realized his mistake. "No, no! I wasn't saying that. Or… okay, fine. Maybe I am, a little bit. But if the method for escape has a good chance of both of us dying, it's not worth the risk."

"I thought you wanted to get out of here. You were willing to let other monsters form in hopes they'd lead to a way out. What's different this time?"

"That's different. WE can handle a few monsters. But we can't train for this!"

"Do you want to escape from here or not!?"

He breathed heavily. "But-"

"No buts. Either you want to escape as much as you really claim you do, or you don't."

He put his head in his hands. "Don't make me decide."

"You asked me something, earlier. You wanted to know why I wanted to play instead of work. If you aren't willing to jump into my mind to see it, I guess I'll have to tell you. I'm not 'complacent,' I'm waiting for an opportunity. I play because there's no point in getting down in the dumps. But all the while, I'm waiting. I've been waiting for something like this, a way out. And that way out has come. So, are you going to take my hand or not?" I extended my hand.

He breathed heavily. "I…" I could see the struggle within him. He was scared. Not just for me, but for himself. That fear was something I recognized.

I saw something flicker in Steven's eye. Of what, I didn't know. But it pushed him over the edge. He held out his hand, and extended it, closer and closer to mine.

"It's going to be okay," I said. "I promise."

He said nothing. He shut his eyes, and put his hand in mine. I put my foot forwards, prepared to dance. Two people have to be in complete sync to fuse. The dance is just a means to do so. But the moment his hands touched mine, my body was already glowing in a white light.

I didn't understand. In the past, when our minds have been one, we've been able to fuse without dancing. But we had been so out of sync with each other. Just seconds earlier, we had been screaming at each other. So how did we begin to fuse with such differing emotions?

Though I was glowing, I wasn't fused yet. While both of us glowed, we begun to dance again, without a word. It wasn't like the last one, just for fun. I could feel something more in his dance. Each step he made was deliberate. In a state so close to fusion, I could sense his emotions.

He was scared, yes. But there was more to it than that. Despite his fear, he believed in me to follow my promises. And he knew there might be a way out. Even though he was scared, he was being brave. Brave enough to fight his fears and fight death, face-to-face. They say you have to be scared to be brave, and being sucked into a void of nothingness terrified him. Despite that, he was pushing forwards.

So close to Fusion, I saw what Steven was seeing. In my dance, he saw my emotions as I had seen his. Where in his steps, I saw strength, he saw something inside of me I didn't even see inside of myself. He saw a flicker of fear inside of me. No matter how headstrong I seemed, no matter what façade I put up, he saw it.

I tried to deny it. But it was the truth. I was terrified. What human isn't scared of death? But I was able to push through it, because I believed in the two of us. That was what pushed him over the edge.

That flicker in his eyes that I saw? When he was pushed over the edge? That was the moment when he realized that I was just as scared as him, but I was willing to take the risk. That was what made him willing to do the same.

And above all else, despite my fears, I still believed in us. And within himself, despite his own fears, he believed in us, too. Fear and Bravery. Two halves to the same coin.

We finished our dance, and collided one last time. I glowed completely white, and finally fused.

* * *

My eyes flickered open. Despite all those emotions, I still remembered the plan. The room was about to collapse, so, as fast as I could, I looked for an exit, and then get out. I didn't have time to think about anything else. I was ready to diffuse at any time. An exit, the room shaking, falling apart, I was waiting. I looked around… and the room was fine. All that buildup, and nothing happened.

I was angry for a moment. But I couldn't stay angry for long. I laughed out loud. All that buildup, and Connie's original guess was right. I still had Rose's gem, so this room had no reason to collapse. Like Connie thought, absolutely nothing happened.

"Told you," I said. "Or… told me, I guess." I laughed again.

Man, it felt good to be back! I hadn't been like this since… I guess it was since we trained with Pearl! We'd done a few 'fusion training' sessions, but we didn't fuse too often outside of that.

I looked at what I was wearing. Connie had been wearing her sky-blue dress, ever since she got here. Weird, my appearance looked much more like Connie's than Steven's! I always wore the read shirt, yellow star! But this time, my shirt was light blue, with a red star in the middle. It was nice to be out of the red shirt we _always_ wore. It got super old.

"Hey!" My Steven half said.

"It's true," my Connie half said.

Hmm… Wasn't there some reason we wanted to fuse in the first place? Oh, right! Connie wanted to show Steven what she was feeling… although, I guess that already happened.

My Steven half was incredulous. He thought that this was working he could feel it for himself, not just take Connie's word for it. Connie mentally scoffed.

"Calm down, you guys," I said. "Or, calm down, self."

I sighed. Man, I'd missed arguing with myself.

"What do you want to do?" I said. But then I remembered, it was just me. Oddly enough, that didn't put me down. "Hey, remember when that absolutely destroyed us, that it was just me, even though we were together? You know, the first time I was ever here? That was fun, wasn't it?"

My Connie side took control. "Hey, I want a muffin!" It appeared.

"And you did that because…?" My Steven side said.

"I never get to ask for stuff, I have to draw it. I wanted to see what if was like!" I took a bite, and dropped it into the clouds.

"Well, then I get to draw something." I reached for the notebook and started drawing.

"You could've drawn something from my notebook without fusing!" My Connie side said. But my Steven side was already in the middle of drawing. I drew up a portal gun, and wrote 'normal' next to it. It appeared.

"You happy now?" I said.

"Quite," I said. I fired off a few portals, then wished it away.

"You know, we'd look super crazy to someone who doesn't understand fusion. I'm just talking to myself, huh?" I laughed again.

I didn't mind that I didn't escape. Because at least I was enjoying my company, for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

* * *

I spent the rest of the day messing around. No theories, just some fun. I understood, it was unlikely the room would just let us out. But I would be ready. I was always keeping the mysteries in the back of my mind, of course, but they weren't my top priority. I'd figure it out, sooner or later.

A few hours later or so, we diffused. And we were doing a lot better. Maybe, we could coexist here after all. Not that it was really a doubt until today.

It was a bit awkward sleeping in a dress, but I managed. I went to bed without issues.

* * *

One last thing happened on day 8. In the middle of the night, I woke up. Not because of a gunshot, but because of a thought. All day, even as Stevonnie, I was thinking, in the back of my mind. About the events earlier in the day. I didn't have any breakthroughs. I still didn't know what about that gun seemed so familiar, and I still didn't know when Steven was in one position for 15 minutes. Even now, I didn't know the answers.

But what I did know was how to find the answers.

Tomorrow, I had a plan.

Today, I fell asleep again.

Because I was tired.

(Line)

 _A/N: Man, Stevonnie is hard to write! I hope I did them justice :P. And, of course, thanks to Wolfspirit for the idea. If anybody else has ideas of where to go with the story, don't hesitate to send them in!_

 _Sorry about the wait, btw. No real reason, just a bit of good-old-fashioned writer's block._

 _Random Elephants. Variables In Excitement… What?_

 _Yeah, that's what I got for telling you to review, today. Eh. (Shrugs)_

 _Honestly, I don't have too much to say this chapter. I put a lot of effort into the fusion sequence, so tell me if you enjoyed that one. Tell me your overarching theories, as always. The next chapter's coming. Basic stuff._

 _Again, remember to review, fave and follow if you haven't already, and, if you're an amazing person, recommend it to your friends. It's how I grow my fic, after all! Or, if you're an antisocial loser like me… don't, I guess._

 _Next time, We see what Connie's idea is, and if that doesn't fill the chapter, then I'll improvise. Nope, I don't have anything more, guess we'll see. See you guys then!_


	8. Day 9: Secrets and Stolen Memories

Day 9: Secrets and Stolen Memories

I slowly opened my eyes. The room was dark, but I could hear Steven's breathing, meaning he was already awake. Man, I needed to start getting up sooner. Why did I have trouble sleeping this time, again? Was I just sleeping in?

No, there was a much more specific reason. I remembered the idea I had last night, and I wasted absolutely no time saying it.

"Stop everything, Steven!" I said. I jumped out of bed and ran up his bedside. I put my hands on his shoulders. "I have an idea!"

He jumped and looked up. "W-what!?" he said. He had been holding a DS in his hands. 'Had been' because in his surprise, he dropped it on the floor. "Hey, it was getting good…"

"No time for that! I know how to test some of our theories!"

"Could you back up one second? What are you talking about!?"

"Yesterday! Your dream! And the thing the two of us swear we've have been missing! I thought of a way to figure out what happened!"

Steven shook off his baffled-ness (Pretty sure that's a word). "Then… what are you waiting for? What's your idea?"

"So," I said. I clapped my hands together, excited. "The room draws a lot of this stuff off our memories, right? It knows what beach city looks like without even being there, how would that be possible unless it could read our memories?"

He shrugged. "I kind of figured that much, it's not exactly groundbreaking. Where are you going with this?"

I put my hands on his shoulders in excitement again. "Well, if it can see into our memories, then surely it can see my more recent ones, too! Remember how I said I wasn't sure how long everything took during the fight? How it could've been 15 minutes, but my memories were foggy? If we asked the room, it could look into my memories and tell us! You thought there was something we were missing? Well, so did I! And maybe seeing the events again will trigger your memory! It's perfect!"

He pushed me off himself. "Calm down, Connie! Sheesh," he said.

"I can't help it! It's the first breakthrough I've had since we've gotten here!"

"I mean, I made a small breakthrough yesterday with my dream logic…"

"One, that was pretty small, and two, it was your idea, not mine! So it's my first big breakthrough! What do you think!"

A grin dawned on his face. "…Yeah, it's a pretty great idea." He said.

"Then what are we waiting for! All you have to do is ask for the room to show the memory! I mean, it's hard for me to draw something, so it's up to you."

"Room, show us the memories of the battle yesterday, starting from when I passed out!"

…Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

I sighed. "You know, maybe you should've been more specific. It's generic wishes like that that end up spiraling out of control and create cyberwolves."

"Yeah, yeah…" Steven yawned. "Room, could you create a device…" he yawned yet again.

"You seem tired," I said. I yawned myself. "Yeesh, now you've got me doing it!" Still, my energy started leaving me…

"I'm fine. It's just… I swore I got enough sleep…" He yawned again.

My eyelids started drooping. I collapsed onto Steven's bed, as did he.

"What's… going… on…?" I said. I couldn't keep myself awake any longer. I passed out.

* * *

When I woke up, I was floating in midair. I had some sort of ethereal body. I raised my arm, and I could see right through it. It shined purple.

I looked to my right, and saw a glowing form shaped just like Steven, in pink. "Where are we?" I said.

He pointed downwards. We seemed to be floating high above Rose's room. Directly below us, I saw a metallic wolf clawing at a giant brick wall. It fired a bullet, then jumped to the left. And then I saw myself, on the other end of the wall. She… I? We drew in our notebook, and a wall encircled us.

The room was showing us my memory.

"I told you, you should have been more specific," I said.

"Shh," he said. "I'm trying to watch."

"This isn't a movie," I deadpanned. "This is my memory."

"Shhhh!"

I watched from above as the past me thought about what I had to do.

The battle went like I remembered it. I fought for my life, made a desperate play, and somehow managed a win. It all happened so fast in hindsight. The time in between firing the failed disintegration ray and striking the final blow with a pen was about a minute. I still had no idea what made my pen work that way…

After that, I collapsed onto the floor, just like I remembered. I was obscured by the clouds, but still easily visible.

I waited a minute for my past self to get up and set Steven onto his bed. Then 2 minutes. Then 5. I narrowed my eyebrows.

"Didn't you say…?" Steven said.

"Quiet. I know I'm getting up soon."

I waited another 5 minutes in silence.

"What's going on…?" I muttered to myself, maybe 10 minutes in.

"Is something wrong?" Steven said.

I growled. "I swore I only waited for a minute, to catch my breath. This isn't right."

"Come on, everybody makes mistakes, Connie."

"But what if the wolf wasn't the only threat! Then I'd be sleeping while it tore us to pieces."

"Connie, look closer," Steven said. He attempted to put his hand on my shoulder, but it went right through me. I wasn't amused. He pretended nothing happened. "So, as I was saying, look closer. You're not asleep, you're resting."

I did look. As I said, my body was obscured, but I could tell that my eyes were open.

That just made me more confused. "Then why don't I remember anything?" I said.

"Why does your pen have magical slashing powers? Why are we trapped here at all? Does anything make sense anymore?"

I put my foot down on the nonexistant ground. "I don't accept that. That's an object. These are my _memories._ And I don't take kindly to having my memories being altered with." Looking down at the scene below me, a blurry image began to take shape in my mind.

Steven's glowing form put up his hands. "Woah, woah! I didn't say your memories were altered with. Maybe… maybe time was dilated or something. Maybe you did take a quick nap or something. I doubt this place even has the ability to alter memories."

The blurry image I had in my mind faded away. "Yeah… I guess you're right," I said.

At that point in time, a single tear formed on my past self's cheek, which I had no memory of. The two of us shut up and watched intently.

Her body twitched slightly. Again, something I didn't remember doing. All around her, a wind started brewing. The pink clouds around her started to spiral. They were always up to our knees, but when they spiraled, they gained in elevation. Very quickly, they completely covered the scene. We couldn't see a thing. I could see my past self only as a muted figure, surrounded by pink mist.

I looked closely, but I still couldn't see. It wasn't until around a minute later until I could see again, when the clouds stopped swirling. As they drifted downwards, My past self drifted into view. She just stood there. She wasn't scared. She looked defiant. But not against the clouds… against the wolf. Like she hadn't gone through what we had just see her go through. She was in the exact same position I remembered being in when I stood up. Somehow, I knew this was the moment the imposter below and my own memories converged.

She went back to doing exactly what I remembered doing, picking up Steven's body and setting it on the bed. Then protecting it valiantly, like she hadn't been sitting for 15 minutes, defenseless. She guarded his body with her life, after just potentially leaving him to die.

I couldn't help but feeling sorry. Even if Steven said otherwise, I felt like I had betrayed him.

Throughout the rest of the memory, nothing else stood out. At no other time were my memories inaccurate. It went just as I described. I was a bit worried we would have to watch the whole 2 hours of me sitting around doing nothing, but Steven just asked the room to fast-forward through that section.

As past Connie woke up Steven, present Steven said, "I want to go back to our bodies, now."

The vision disintegrated instantly, and I blacked out.

* * *

I was back in my body again, like no time had passed at all. "That… was something." I said, thinking back to the minutes I lay prone.

"Yep."

"I…" I said. But I cut myself off. I didn't want to put a damper on our moods. "Did… did you happen to see anything you didn't during my explanation?" I said.

"I mean, we know at when those 15 minutes were. It had to have been the same minutes you lost. I mean, if my dream wasn't during that time, why would the room lie to your brain about it? I guess the real question is, why did those 15 minutes trigger my dream…"

I sighed, letting my emotions come through. "I just wish I knew why I missed out on a good 14 minutes of my life…"

Steven rolled his eyes. "Connie, it's fine."

"No, it's not!" I snapped at him. Steven shrunk back. I took a few deep breaths. "I… I'm sorry," I said. "It's just… you were there. I don't remember being out for that long. And I definitely don't remember the clouds swirling like they did. Either this memory from the room was wrong… or my memories were altered."

"You know, how did the room show that, anyways?" Steven said. "I thought I said for it to search our memories and show us what happened during the fight, even if it did do that a little unintuitively. If it was showing your memories, and you don't remember doing that, how did it show what you did?"

"…Wait a minute…" I said slowly. "You said for it to show us the memory of the room… not **my** memory. So… what if it showed its own memory? If that was the case, it didn't show what I saw. It showed what it saw. I know we've theorized in the past that the room is alive, but…"

"…But you think this might confirm it?"

I shivered, thinking about the ramifications of the statement. "Yeah…"

He put his hands on his shoulder, this time for real. "We always knew it was likely, right? So of course, it has memories. If that's true, my dream was probably the room showing me its memory of what's happening on the outside of itself. Meaning there's some good in it, right? And it's giving us food, right? So it's not evil. Maybe that means there's some way we can reason with it, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah," I said. But my mind was still on-

"Connie, get your mind out of the missing-15-minutes-of-your-life shaped gutter."

I blinked a few times. "…Am I really that transparent?"

"I was fused with you yesterday. For me, at least, yes."

I sighed. "It's not just about that, though."

"You're disappointed that you failed? That when you were the only one who could protect me, you passed out?"

I stared at him.

"Sharing minds, remember?"

I sighed. "Sometimes I hate that I chose you to be my best friend. I could at least hide my emotions from them."

A hint of a smile worked its way onto Steven's face. "Oh, so you don't want to train with Pearl anymore? I doubt she'd train you if I was never your best friend. Well, when we get our of here, I guess I'm going to have to tell her that we aren't friends anymore…"

I cut him off. "I said sometimes, didn't I!? Like, 99.9% of the time, I'm happy! But _sometimes_ I wish you couldn't basically read my emotions like a book."

Steven laughed, but he strangely cut himself short. The smile faded from his face. "Well, I can't tell it all the time."

I cocked my head. "Huh?"

"I'm just thinking about the time after I escaped from the diamonds. If I had been able to talk to you on the beach, you would never have run away. If I had been able to read you emotions like I've been doing, we wouldn't have been apart for so long. If I had been able to talk to you back then, I could've-"

"No," I said, cutting him of. "You couldn't."

He shook his head slowly. "Don't try to put the blame on yourself."

I eyed him defiantly. "I guess you can't read my emotions perfectly after all. Because I'm not putting the blame on myself, not completely. We both played that situation badly, you know? It's not your fault, it's not mine. We both made mistakes. We have enough to worry about, don't we? The room being alive, and my missing memories. I don't have the time to deal with another one of your meltdowns."

Steven was incredulous. "Meltdowns!?"

I shrugged. "That's the word I'm using."

He scoffed. "Whatever. Petty insults don't mean you win the argument."

"It got you to stop being mopey, didn't it?"

"Oh, shut it." But he smiled. "Thanks, Connie."

"For insulting you?"

He growled, but it was more playful than anything else. "You know what I mean! I know your memories are going haywire, but you're still trying your best to cheer me up. So, thank you."

"Hey, thank you for keeping me sane here, too," I said. "I can't imagine being stuck here alone."

The conversation reached a companionable silence.  
Steven turned to me. He took a deep breath. "So…" Steven stammered. "I…"

"You want to view the memory again?" I said.

He blinked. "How did you…?"

I smiled and winked at him. "You're not the only one who was in their cohort's head yesterday."

"You're… you're not mad or anything that I want to see it again? You seemed beat up about how your memories were lied to earlier…"

"Of course I'm mad my memories are false ones. But nothing's going to change if I just sit around doing nothing, right? Now, could you please start the memory before I change my mind?"

Steven sighed. "Why was I even worried?" he muttered. "Room, please, show us the memory again, of Connie fighting off the wolf."

* * *

We ended up watching the memory over another 3 times. The first 2 times, I ignored most of it. I just tried my best to see if I could see anything in the spiral of clouds. But no matter how closely I looked, my past self was obscured completely. It was like the room was blocking out the single critical moment I cared about the most.

The third time, I gave up watching that moment. I watched everything, not just that single moment. My eyes ended up settling on the wolf. Even during the battle, I thought something was off about it. And despite the other distractions, I knew there was something off.

I gasped. "I got it!" I said.

"What?"

"Stop the memory! I figured out what we've been missing!"

He did, and we appeared back in our own bodies again.

"What did you figure out?" Steven said, excited.

"We've both been thinking we were forgetting something, ever since he fight yesterday, right? I don't know about you, but I figured out what I was forgetting!" I grabbed my notebook and opened it to the very first page. The first thing I drew in this notebook was a shrink ray. But I had failed. I drew a normal old gun first, instead.

So on the very first page… there was a crude drawing of a gun. It had erase marks all over it, but you could make it out easily enough. Any time one of the notebook's creations poofed into clouds, the one inside it got erased, becoming just a faint image of what it was. Yes, erased pen, it was a bit weird. But if this copy was erased, and the wolf was, too… I knew the gun was the same one mounted on the wolf's head. Somehow, the entity that attacked us had merged with a gun I had drawn. Or… the gun I had drawn spawned the entity? Either way, it was another breakthrough.

Steven finally spoke up. "I don't understand. What does that vial have anything to do with this?"

"What vial?" I said. I looked at the page again. Right next to the erased pen was a non-erased image of some sort of small jar or vial. It kind of looked like the ones holding potions from Emperor's New Groove, but with no animals on them.

One thing, though… I didn't remember drawing it.

"Did you draw this, Steven?" I said.

He cocked his head. "…Draw what?"

"The vial, obviously! I didn't do it."

That confused Steven even more. "I didn't draw it. Not without asking you first, anyways. Besides, why did you turn to the page with the vial drawn on it if you didn't know what it was?

I sighed. "Look closer. There's a faint, erased image of a gun. The first thing I spawned in, remember? It's the same one that was mounted on the wolf's head."

He stared at the page. And his eyes widened. "Oh my god, you're right! That's what I was forgetting! What does it mean? Could the gun have spawned the wolf? Or, did the wolf spawn all on its own, and it had the power to merge-"

I wanted to be excited, but my emotions had been muted. "Steven, for the record, I've thought of all of this on my own. Honestly, it isn't an amazing breakthrough."

"…What!? How is it not big? It's huge! Think about it! Think of all the things this could mean!"

"I am thinking. I mean, yeah, we know the wolf had that gun on its head. But, I ask you… so what? It's not a big breakthrough. A breakthrough would be putting all the clues we've gathered together to get a conclusion. The gun forming a wolf is just another clue. Just like the fact that the room showed you the outside. Just like the memories I never made. None of this means anything if we can't do anything but make stupid theories. At this point, it's just as bad as the picture I never drew."

He looked at the vial on the page again. "So that's what drained your excitement, huh?"

I slumped down. "I guess so."

He tried to cheer me up. "I mean, that's nothing compared to losing 14 minutes of memory, right?"

"I guess so," I said again. The thing was, he didn't really understand what it really meant to me. I'd grown attached to that notebook. It was my _attachment_ to this world. And without it, I was powerless. This was personal to me. Some new writing in my notebook was just as much a breach to my security as losing a part of my memory.

I looked at the vial. I compared it to the gun on the same page. And I realized, it wasn't erased. Which meant a copy of it existed in the physical world as well. Despite my mental state, my brain started building connections.

"I know that look," Steven said. "You've made it a whole heck of a lot today. What's your breakthrough this time?"

"Grab my hand," I said. "And be alert."

He took a step back. "…Alert?"

I pulled out my locket from beneath my shirt. "Remember this thing? You write the name of something to teleport there. And this vial, it's not erased, meaning it still exists here somewhere. If you put those two points together, if I wrote the name of the vial…"

"You could go there!" He was excited. Then, a hint of confusion worked its way onto his face. "You said earlier to be alert. I guess I don't understand why."

I clenched my fist. "I didn't draw the vial. That means it's likely someone else did. Whoever made this vial, they might still have it. Which means, when we type in the coordinates, we might teleport to another person. And we don't know if they're friendly. So all I was saying was, when I teleport to them, be on guard, okay?"

Steven nodded. He was breathing a little heavily, but he wasn't scared. "Got it."

I tapped the buttons on the locket, grabbed Steven's hand, and braced myself.

A flash, and I was standing in a sea of clouds. I looked all around us. Steven was next to me, of course. I let go of his hand before it got awkward. Nobody else was nearby. Maybe 100 yards away, I could see something. Our beds, sticking up out of the cloud sea. We weren't even that far away.

"If nobody was holding it, I guess it must be on the ground or something," Steven said.

Taking his advice, I reached down, sweeping my hand across the floor. And sure enough, hidden in the clouds, was a tiny vial. I picked it up. Oddly enough, it was completely empty. Actually… not quite. Inside, there was a single drop of some sort of clear liquid. Although what it contained was a mystery to me.

"What… is it?" I said.

"I… I'm not sure…"

I stared at the vial for a few seconds. And then, I blinked. When my eyes closed, for the tiniest fraction of a second, I got a flash of an image. It was almost identical to what I was seeing with my own two eyes. A vial, filled with a single drop of a mysterious liquid. But in the image, in the background, Steven was lying on the floor. When I opened my eyes again, it left a ghostly afterimage of his body lying prone on the floor. I closed my eyes again, but saw only blackness. I narrowed my eyes. Something about that pose seemed familiar.

"Is something wrong, Connie?" Steven said.

I didn't answer him. Instead, I opened my notebook to the drawing of the vial. It didn't look like anyone else had drawn it. I was my penmanship. Like… exactly my penmanship. Like it was drawn by me in the first place.

I blinked again, and I saw another image. The page, but with my hand in the middle of drawing the vial. Again, when I opened my eyes, nothing had changed.

Once was a coincidence, they said. But twice was a pattern.

As I stared at the vial, I felt a flood of strange and contradictory emotions. Hopelessness. Joy. Anger. Accomplishment. Fear. Hope. All swirling around one another.

There was a memory hiding from me. The memory of those 15 minutes, lying prone. And this vial was the key.

Staring at the vial, I finally broke the barrier. My memories all came swirling back to me.

I remembered it. In those 15 minutes, there was no time dilation, and I wasn't asleep.

My memories were forcibly stolen away from me. And I knew exactly why.

* * *

After the long fight with the robotic wolf, I lay on the floor for a minute, to gather my strength.

But when I had tried to get up… I was completely paralyzed. I struggled against some sort of invisible force. I tried my best, but I couldn't move. After laying down, breathing heavily for a minute or so, it was like my body had shut down. No matter how hard I tried, my body wouldn't respond. I tried to warn Steven, but I couldn't move my mouth, I couldn't make a sound.

At the time, I thought it had to be some sort of entity, pinning me to the ground. No, not pinning, per say. When I tried to move my muscles, they weren't fighting against an invisible force. My muscles just refused to respond to me.

I knew what had to be happening. There had to be a wolf there, staring my body down. A wolf, or maybe some other creature using it's powers to toy with me. Preventing me from doing a thing. Watching me struggle hopelessly before it went in for the kill. And I couldn't do anything.

For a long time, I kept struggling. I didn't know exactly how long. But it felt like an eternity. But no matter what I did, there was nothing I could do.

I couldn't protect Steven.

I couldn't even protect myself.

And finally, I collapsed. I stopped pushing. And a single tear streamed down my cheek. Why couldn't I do anything!? It was like I had proven my worth, only to be tossed to the ground like a discarded paper towel. I thought, if there was a wolf looking me over, I wished it would just kill me then and there.

I couldn't even shut my eyes and wait for the inevitable, because I couldn't move my eyelids.

But something stopped me from giving up. A… a tear went down my eye? That filled my heart up, just a little. I wasn't just a ragdoll. I might not have been able to move a muscle, but if I could produce a tear, then… maybe there was something more I could do?

I hated to quote Undertale, but that tear filled my heart with just a little bit of determination.

I started fighting once again. I knew, whatever force was there wasn't infinite. It let a tear through its barrier. Meaning my power didn't have to be infinite, either. My power just had to be a little bit stronger than its was. So I summoned all the strength that I had and started pushing once again, stronger and stronger.

My ring finger twitched. It wasn't much movement at all. But it told me that escape was possible. Determination coursed through my veins as I pushed up with all my might, and I twitched my whole body this time. My muscles were already sore again, but that wasn't stopping me. Every time I pushed, I felt more confident, more and more of the force keeping me down melted away. It was a battle of wills, and I was winning. I was growing stronger while its power stayed stagnant.

The clouds, they started swirling all around me. Slow at first, then faster and faster. I felt them straining against me. I wasn't fighting some sort of wolf, here, I was fighting the entire room. Through the swirling clouds, I kept pushing.

15 minutes after I collapsed onto the floor, I took my left hand and started to push myself upwards. Because this was me we were talking about. I co-defeated Jasper. I could defeat whatever mental force this was. Despite the strength of the room, I was stronger.

The weight loosened and loosened, even though the clouds kept swirling, faster and faster. I slowly put my leg out and stood up on my own two feet. The higher up I got, the weaker and weaker the force got.

And then, when I fully stood up, the force disappeared.

The clouds still swirled all around me, but I couldn't feel their effects any longer.

I wiped at the tear that spurred me to get up. But I didn't let it hit the floor. It sat atop my finger.

It was sentimental, I knew. But I knew I had to immortalize the moment. With my left hand, I opened my notebook to the first page and drew a small vial. In my hand spawned a tiny vial and cork. I brought my right hand over and let my tear drop into the vial. Just to be a memory of the moment I truly triumphed over adversity.

I still wondered what had caused the clouds to act the way they did. Surely, it couldn't have been the room on its own… right? It didn't have that power. But, then, was some other entity hiding in the clouds?

I felt a wave of nothingness wash over me as I watched the clouds. It was hard to describe. But my senses melted away, my entire being began to drift, if only for a second. I struggled to block the wave, and just as soon as it started, everything came back. Just as I was recoiling from the last one, another wave came, stronger than the first. And when I fought that one off, another. Every time, I struggled to block the assault. But I was fighting a losing battle.

By the 7th wave, I couldn't handle it. Something malicious was coming, and I couldn't stop it. I whispered, "I'm sorry, Steven…"

And then my consciousness faded away. The time I spent fighting off the clouds, it faded. The vial, it faded from my memory. It slipped from my hand, onto the ground with a 'clink.'

New memories were planted, of me lying there for a minute or so, then getting up.

The clouds stopped swirling, and the room was peaceful again.

 _Well,_ I thought, _no time to waste._ I brought all the strength I could muster and picked Steven up, carrying him over to his bed, for more comfort, no idea what I had just forgotten, or that I had forgotten anything at all.

* * *

That was the truth of what had happened. The room attacked me. Then, when it lost, it took my memories away. But it made a mistake. It didn't take this vial.

Then came the challenge of trying to explain to Steven what I saw.

"Steven," I said. "There's an evil in this room. I just leaned that. I'll tell you exactly what happened in a moment. But for now, I want you to know, there's an evil, hereAnd yet, we also get food and water, and they show you the outside world." As I spoke, I started to realize something. "I think… I think there's an evil here, yes. But also a force of good. There are two entities, working against one another. The good one was the one that showed you the outside world. And the evil one was the one that stole my memories away. I figured it all out. That's the secret of Rose's room."

* * *

 _A/N: Honestly, I have no idea how clear I've been making the mysteries. Hopefully Connie's conclusion didn't come out of nowhere. Heck, I hope all of the twists and turns of this chapter were logical._

 _By the way, there's much more to the twist than just 'the room is conscious with both good and evil entities in it.' As always, I want to hear your theories, as how well you liked the chapter._

 _In other words, to-_

"Are you asking them to review _again?_ Pathetic."

 _Well, yeah, it's my thing! Doing it more and more absurd every chapter! By the way… who are you, exactly?_

"I'd think you'd know. You're the one writing me, right?"

… _What?_

"You use that word a lot, you know. 'What.' The name's Connie, to answer your question."

 _Wait, you're…? Oh, please don't tell me you're going to be a running joke. Showing up in author's notes to ruin my fun._

"Meh, we'll see. Depends on how much the people at home like me. And to all the viewers at home, remember to favorite, follow, and review!"

 _Wait, I thought you said you didn't want me to beg for reviews._

"Never said that. It's my story, isn't it? Why wouldn't I want more people to read it? I just said it's pathetic when _you_ do it. When I do it, it's cute! By the way, speaking of getting people to read it… I don't suppose you'd like to explain why you didn't upload in a week? Doesn't exactly help a story grow when you don't write chapters."

 _Come on, it was Christmas! Cut me a little slack…_

"You've been playing video games and watching YouTube for the rest of the time. You have no excuse."

 _Uh… *runs*_

*sigh* "Well, I'll see if I can get him to write the next chapter a little bit quicker. As for you guys, he usually does a 'next time' segment, doesn't he? Well, heck if I know. I'm just a character, I don't know the future. But knowing him, there's probably going to be another big revelation, if he hasn't run out of those _this_ chapter. I think I overheard him saying he had a plan, so expect the plot to move forward in ways other than just clues and theories. See you guys then, I guess."


	9. Day 10: Something Like Fusion

Day 10: Something Like Fusion

As I stared at my notebook at the beginning of the tenth day since we got here, I thought over everything that happened the previous day. The first 5 hours or so were a whirlwind, of course. Figuring out that not only were my memories stolen, but there was malicious intent behind it… it was rough. But after all of that happened, it was surprisingly calm. After I made that last leap in logic, learning of the existence of an evil entity, and Steven reacting to it, there was little else to say. We set up what little we could think of to help prevent it's power. There wasn't much we could think of that would have any effect on an entity that controlled the entire room. Even then, I knew what little we did try would have little effect if it ever got full control…

The biggest thing we did was for Steven to promise that we wouldn't ask the room for anything unless it was absolutely necessary. Even if his 'wants' worked 99.9% of the time, there was always that 0.1% chance it would go horribly wrong. It was probably the 0.1% that spawned the wolf. Not the gun, of course, but the entity possessing it. We decided that we would use my notebook whenever possible.

The rest of the day was… normal. We tried to stay positive, above all else. So we goofed off, not to distract ourselves from the mysteries, but to stay focused.

The last thing I remembered was, when I got to bed, we couldn't turn out the lights, because Steven would've had to use a want to do so. I ended up sleeping very poorly.

I thought over all of that. I thought over the unimportant details left out of the recap because they were ultimately useless to my train of thought. I also thought of everything that came before all that, in both hours and days. I wracked my brain, as hard as I could, but there was nothing that either Steven or I did yesterday that would've spawned a clear blue gemstone to appear in the middle of my notebook. Yet there it was, reflecting the room's light back at me.

I pinched myself, and no, just because I slept poorly didn't mean I was dreaming.

At a glance, the notebook looked normal enough. It was a plain, green cover to a spiralbound book, just like it was before. It weighed just as much as it had before. The center was the only thing to change. If I hadn't known what it looked like before, I wouldn't have even known anything was wrong. But I did know what it looked like, and I knew that there wasn't supposed to be a thin gemstone in the middle! It was like the middle portion of the paper of the notebook was magically replaced by a clear glass, tinted a bright blue, revealing a window right towards the drawing of the vial from my stolen memory. The way they merged together so seamlessly, it almost looked something like fusion.

Except… it wasn't glass. It was a gem. And in this room, gems were dangerous. From my experiences, one bearly controlled the room, and one tried to kill us. Who knew what this one might do…

I set my panic aside and kept wracking my brain for a reason it might be there. If it wasn't anything that happened yesterday, then what about today? I thought about _exactly_ what happened since I woke up. Honestly speaking, the answer was 'not much.' I woke up before Steven, for once. I reached for my notebook, to draw something. And it wasn't on my bedside table. I panicked for a moment, looking around frantically. I happened to look at the floor. There it sat, face down. I picked it up, assuming I must have bumped it over in the middle of the night. I turned it over. And right there, embedded in the front cover, was a light blue gem.

There I had sat, staring at the notebook for the past few minutes, wondering what possibly could've happened to make it appear in the times in between when I fell asleep last night and woke up the next morning.

I unfroze, once I confirmed for myself that I hadn't missed anything. There was nothing that I did that was particularly unusual, it was just… here.

I racked my brain further. What could have possibly happened?

Did…did Steven wake up in the middle of the night and draw it in or something? When I thought it over, I guessed that was the most rational explanation I could think of. I flipped my notebook open to see if there was a drawing of any sort of gemstone in it.

I looked through the hundreds of pages… and there was nothing unusual there at all. No gems, and while I was at it, no other drawings I didn't recognize. There was nothing that explained the gemstone.

I closed it again and stared at it. I tapped the gem several times. It was completely solid. I didn't know why I bothered, knocking the way I did.

I had nothing. There was no reason I could think of that would cause a gem to spawn like it did. I couldn't think of any sort of deductions on my own. I felt my panic I had set aside beginning to take control.

But I steeled myself. Just because I couldn't make any deductions of my own… didn't mean I couldn't make any deductions without Steven.

I jumped out of bed to wake him up.

And the moment my foot touched the floor, my body froze, just like it had in my stolen memory.

I pulled back with all my might, and the clouds released my body from its grasp. I fell backwards, into my bed's fluffy mattress.

 _What's going on?_ I thought. But I knew that had to wait. The last time this happened, it immediately launched a full-on assault on my memories. So I braced my mental fortitude, hoping it would be enough.

10 seconds. 15 seconds. 20 seconds. And… nothing. I stared downwards into the cloud layer. Could… could its paralysis only affect me if I was touching the ground?

.I blinked several times, baffled. But I guessed that what was most important was that I was safe.

Onto the more pressing issue: why was even happening in the first place? This had happened before, but that was only because Steven was unconscious at the time! He couldn't control the evil entity, and it's powers caught up to me.

…And he was unconscious, now. He still couldn't control the entity.

I cautiously reached into the clouds and swirled my finger through them. I could feel a numbing sensation trickling up my arm. I pulled my hand out quickly.

It… it didn't make sense. If this happened every time I touched the clouds while Steven was asleep, I surely should've been paralyzed already.

Actually, when I thought about it, this _was_ the first time since the second day we got here that I woke up before Steven. And that day, I suppose I didn't get out of bed until Steven was awoken by the giant earthquake. I had never woken up in the middle of the night. There was no time I could think of that I touched the ground while Steven was asleep. Was I just that lucky up until that point?

There were still a few things that kept nagging me. What about during the battle? Steven was unconscious, shouldn't I have been paralyzed the moment he went down?

There might have been an explanation for that, too. The way I broke it's hold the in my vision was through pure willpower. At the time, my body was pumped full of adrenaline, maybe that caused me to be immune to its effects. And after my mind was wiped, whatever entity was in here chose to not lock my movements so not to reveal itself! And that meant if I was forgetting any exceptions, it just meant the room didn't choose that opportunity to attack. It all made sense!

Was it that simple? Whenever Steven was asleep, he couldn't control the room. If I was right, and there was an evil entity here, it must have been mostly restrained by the Rose Quarts gemstone! And if he was asleep, it wasn't restrained anymore!

Unfortunately, there was one last thing that kept bugging me. My notebook. Just this morning, I had left it in the clouds, and when I picked it up, even though my hand touched the floor of the room, I didn't freeze. And I couldn't chalk it up to the room not wanting to attack me, because it had malicious intent just 5 minutes later. There was no reason for it to have not wanted to attack at that specific instant.

I reached out my hands again and dropped my notebook onto the floor. Then, I cautiously reached down to grab it. My hand entered the layer of clouds. I set my hand on the book. And I felt nothing.

I took the notebook out, stuck my hand in again, and numbness again. Was this because of the gem? Why would that mean anything? It didn't make sense at all.

Actually, maybe it did make sense… I _was_ paralyzed the moment the wolf was defeated, and it did have a gem in it, too. Maybe it wasn't adrenaline. Maybe it was because of the other gem's appearance, then? If another gem was here… no, maybe in the clouds, the evil entity couldn't attack? But… no, I'd taken the notebook out of the clouds before the gem appeared.

All of these contradictions so early in the morning started to give me a small headache.

Ugh… this was getting me nowhere. I needed another opinion. Wasn't I going to wake up Steven for a second opinion?

I moved to step out of bed again, but I stopped myself. _Oh, right._ I thought.

I looked across the room at Steven. His bed was a good 10 feet away from mine. And I couldn't touch the floor.

I yelled over to him. "Hey, Steven! Wake up!"

No response. He didn't even roll groan or shift. He continued to sleep like a log.

I yelled a few more times, with equal success as the first one.

 _Heavy sleeper,_ I thought. I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised. He did sleep through several gunshots a few nights ago.

The fact I couldn't just yell at him to wake him up, though… it provided a tiny problem. How the heck was I going to get over there? Normally, I would draw a magical wake-me-up potion, but I didn't trust my notebook. I didn't want to use it before running it by Steven. If I tried drawing something in it, who knew what might happen? I was on my own on this one.

I thought over my inventory. I had my jet-shoes. I could click my heels together to summon them. But I had very limited practice using them. If I didn't do it perfectly, I might just crash into the floor and be caught in its grasp. I made a mental note that I needed practice using the boots in case I found myself in a situation much like this one. But for now, I didn't want to use a method that had even the smallest chance of letting the room wipe my memory. I'd keep it in mind, but if it was at all possible, I wanted to avoid using them

What else could I use? I had my teleport-locket, of course. But that had its own problems. It would let me teleport _near_ Steven, but not right on him. It might teleport me right into the clouds instead of onto his bed. I'd keep it in mind as an option, but I wanted to avoid unneeded risks.

I sighed. I'd had an answer in front of me this whole time, much as I wanted to deny it. When the notebook was on the ground, the area around it was immune to the effects of the clouds. Which meant, I could use it as a makeshift platform. Despite the risk, it was the safest option by far. I held my notebook outwards towards the ground, and reached my foot towards it.

But I hesitated.

What if… what if I was wrong? What if the room was tricking me? What if it wanted me to think the notebook was a lightning rod, and it wasn't? What if, the moment I took a few steps away, if was going to take the opportunity and steal my free will? Take my memories away or even worse? What if… I… was wrong?

I sat there, frozen. I knew, I could just wait for him to wake up. I didn't _have_ to do this.

…So why couldn't I stop myself?

Yes, I did need to do this. I couldn't let the room rule me. Enough crazy conspiracy theories. I threw the notebook forwards and jumped with all my might, before I could stop myself. Completely abandoning the haven that was my bed. I winced, bracing for the worst. My feet landed on the notebook, and I winced. And nothing happened.

I let out a deep breath. I guessed I had made the right choice, after all.

Like in those challenges I did as a kid in elementary school, getting across the gym without touching the floor, I scooted my notebook the few yards to Steven's bed.

I looked upon his sleeping form. I didn't want to wake him up, not now… but I knew he'd be glad I told him about a possible danger as soon as possible. And so, I shook his body lightly. "Hello? Steven?"

His eyes burst wide open, and a bubble formed, centering around his gem. I was sent tumbling to the floor, bruising me lightly. The cloudy floor slowed my fall, but it still hurt. I was panicked for a second, fearing the wrath of the room, but he was awake.

"Who's there?" he said. He drew up a shield.

I groaned. "Just me, Steven…"

He looked over at my crumpled form on the floor. "Oh, I am so sorry!"

"No, it's okay," I said. I rubbed my arm as I got up. "We can always summon some medical supplies."

"Right," he said. "Room, can I have-"

A vision came over me, of the worst care-scenario. He would summon a med-pack, but we'd get a monster instead. And it would kill one of us. **"STOOOOOOOOP!"** I screamed.

He literally fell out of bed and hit his head on the floor. "What? Huh?"

I breathed heavily. "Remember!? We agreed that you shouldn't wish for things, we went over it all yesterday. It's too dangerous, the 'evil entity' might attack. I can make medicine myself." Then, I remembered the state of my notebook. "Or, better yet, I can just endure the pain."

He shook himself off. "There was still no need to scream at me. It would've been fine," he said.

The vision flashed in my head again. I thought about telling him about it, but I knew it was just my overactive imagination acting up. "We can never be too careful," I said instead.

There was a bit of an awkward silence after that. We'd both made mistakes, and accidentally hurt the other. It was a bit awkward. I didn't want to apologise, I was justified in stopping him. But I wished I could _help._ And suddenly, an idea occurred to me that would do just that. I grinned, knowing what good it could do. "Hey, Steven! I had an idea."

He blinked a few times, surprised by my sudden burst of excitement. "An idea? About… what exactly?"

"We want to avoid talking to the room as much as possible, right?" I said, letting the tension build. And then, I let it out. "How about we summon you a notebook all for yourself!"

He cocked his head. "…A notebook for me?"

I clapped my hands together. "Yeah! Think about it! You still want to be able to create stuff, but we don't want to, you know, destroy the universe, right? And you said you wanted to use the notebook while we were fused, didn't you? So why don't you get one for your very own! It's perfect!"

He got up, but he was still skeptical. "I don't know, Connie. M-maybe it'd be better if you did the drawing from here on out…"

I scoffed. "Come on, Steven. What downsides are there for you having the option to use the notebook? Don't you at least want the option? If you wanted to be able to tell them apart, I could get you a tablet or something…"

He coughed, and said something under his breath.

"Huh?" I said.

"I said, I don't know how to draw, okay!? I never really learned how."

I stared at him. "Of all the things in the world, you're embarrassed of being a bad artist."

He shrunk a little. "Don't make fun of me! I'm just not the best at… well, anything, when it comes to drawing…"

I could sympathize with him. But that didn't mean I was going to let up the argument. I rolled my eyes. "You want to see something? Just look at the drawings in this thing!" I said, reaching to my side, where my notebook usually rested. But, um… it wasn't there. I had left it on the floor when Steven pushed me away.

"In… what thing, exactly?"

I didn't say anything. I wordlessly walked up to Steven's bed and grabbed my notebook from the floor. Without missing a beat, I opened it and showed him my drawings, especially the ones from earlier on.

Over the past week, I'd been getting better, by leaps and bounds… but most of what I drew to begin with resembled little more than shapeless blobs with descriptive words next to them to tell the notebook what I was trying to draw.

Steven's eyes bulged, their owner not really having seen my drawings before. I blushed a little, realizing I had just shown some of the worst things I'd ever made creatively to my best friend. In any other scenario, I knew he would've lorded this over me for a long time. But I felt it was a good time for me to open up emotionally.

When I got done flipping through my drawings, I opened it to a new page. I drew another notebook in this one, describing it so it had the same properties as the one I held. "So the next time you complain about how bad your drawings are, I have some advice for you. Don't."

I handed him the notebook I had drawn and closed my own.

Only then did I remember that there was a strange gem in that notebook that could've made it extremely dangerous to draw anything with it. Nothing bad happened… but it could've.

I decided not to mention that to Steven. Because it would kind of undermine the confidence boost I was trying to give him. He was currently staring at his own notebook, not sure what to do with it.

"Need a pen?" I said.

"No, I have one," he said, pulling one out of his jean pocket. I raised an eyebrow. He sighed. "It was there just in case you were out of commission and I needed to use your notebook and didn't know where your pen was. You're not the only one trying to be proactive!" he said

A slow smirk worked its way onto my face. " _Sure,_ " I said. "It isn't because you secretly wanted to use a notebook of your own all along."

"Shut up…" he said, but in a friendly way.

I lightly punched him. "I was just teasing," I said.

He didn't respond, just blushed.

And then… it was time for him to make his first step into the world of drawing to shape the world. He slowly touched pen to notebook and drew a few lines, forming what a stick-person might call a chair. Or, maybe just an upside-down number 4. But, lo and behold, the room knew what he meant, and a simple wooden chair appeared before him.

I clapped enthusiastically. "Great job!"

His face formed a lopsided smile. "There's no need to praise me for a drawing as pitiful as that…"

"No, really. It's the first step towards a better future."

He nodded, still smiling. He turned and sat down on the chair he had just spawned.

For a few seconds, we sat in a companionable silence.

He took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. "Hey, Connie? I wanted to say… thanks," he said.

I blinked a few times. "What for?"

"I know I might've bumped my head in the process of you stopping me from saying the _W_ -word, but that really was a great idea back there. Giving me my own notebook. And… thanks for giving me the chance to shake off my insecurities and just draw. I… I don't know what to say besides 'thank you.'

I was taken away by his sentiment. He really was into the sentimental things, wasn't he? I chuckled. "I mean, I don't think I did all that much, but I'm glad that I helped you." Suddenly, I felt a light throb in my arm. I let out a grunt of pain and grasped it with my other arm.

Steven looked at me with concern. "Are you okay? I know I hit you hard with my bubble, earlier. I'm sorry about that. But now that I have a better way of fixing it! I can draw you up some healing potions!"

I shook my head. "Really, I'm fine. I'm barely bruised. Pain is a fact of life. When I get out of here, I want to remember what it feels like to be sore."

Steven seemed taken aback. "Wow, I didn't expect you to get all philosophical on me! Don't mind me, I'm just trying to be helpful." He paused. "But are you _sure_ you're fine?"

I groaned. "Yes, I'm fine. Sheesh, you don't need to act like you're my mom!"

The moment the words left my lips, I felt a wave of remorse. A pit in my stomach. Mom… I missed her, from the bottom of my soul. I felt a tear beginning to form from the corner of my eye.

But the feeling didn't last as long as it usually did. I wasn't going to let myself feel all sad about it. Because every day, I knew we were getting closer to a way out. And even if every lead came to a dead end, Rose escaped here once, so we could, too. The important thing was not to give up.

"You okay, Connie?" he said, a minute after my last statement.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said with a smile. "I'm just fine."

He looked me in my eye, and I felt a light glow. The same one I felt while we were in that state so close to fusion two days ago. I felt a little hint of his emotions, and he was thinking the same thing. Not about rose, but about the three gems, and his own father. How he was just as determined as I to get out. When I had remembered my mom when I mentioned her, that's who he remembered. It gave me a little more insight into who he was.

I didn't understand it. We weren't fusing, we weren't even touching. But there was a connection there.

It felt amazing…

The glow faded. I looked at him in understanding, with his eyes acting as a mirror to my own.

We both looked away in tandem, with a blush on our faces.

I blinked a few times. "I… uh… as I said, I'm fine."

"Yeah, of course."

"Should we, like move on then?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, so, this is a thing!" I said, throwing up my notebook. This morning, I would have never thought I would be happy to have that gem appear in my notebook, but at this point, it acted as a perfect change of subject. Awkwardness: apparently one of the most effective ways to spur on progress. Anyways, I explained to him everything I knew, including my conclusions regarding when the room would try to paralyze me.

When I was done explaining, I handed the notebook to Steven, which intrigued him the most. "Woah, that's super bizarre!" he said, taking it from my hands. He started turning it around, examining it as I had. He opened and closed it, looking to see if there was any logic behind it that I had failed to notice. His gaze settled back on the gem, and suddenly, he froze, slowly lowering the notebook. "With this gem here…Does this mean it's turning into a gem mutant?"

I blinked several times. "You think what?"

"The gem, it's just like the one your gun had, right? O-one of our theories was that it grew a gem and became a monster. So… what if your notebook is becoming a monster?"

My eyes widened, and my shoulders fell. My voice came out defeated. "…Why didn't I think of that sooner? I assumed that theory was one of the wrong ones. I thought that, you know, some other entity fused with the gun or something. The notebook didn't have anything to do with making a monster. I never thought a gemstone could mean something like…" My defeatism resolved into terror. "Oh my god, and I drew in it! How could I be so stupid!?"

Steven put up his hands. "Calm down, Connie. It's all going to be okay."

"You can't know that! What if-"

"You drew the notebook, didn't you? _Nothing_ went wrong. You're fine. We're fine."

My body literally shook. "Who cares about that!? My notebook. My one and only link to survival here. It's turning into a monster!" My voice grew choppy.

"Connie, it's okay."

"No, it's not!" I snapped. "You don't know what it's like. Over the past week, this notebook's been like a part of me. It's like you suddenly knew your voice could betray you at any time."

"Well, at least you understand how I feel about not being able to say what's on my mind anymore…" he muttered.

"And besides that, I forgot about the gem and put us all in danger just to solve an issue that we could have solved a million ways without resorting to drawing." Steven sighed and begun to draw in his own notebook. I continued to rant. "I was such an idiot! Instead of telling you right away, so we could've been safe, I instead decided to tell you that you were a bad drawer instead. What meaning did that have when it came to our safety? Nothing! Who cares if nothing became of it! I didn't know that nothing bad would happen when I made the drawing! I put us in danger only to reassure you that you could become a decent artist!"

He looked up from his notebook. "And if I might thank you for doing so…"

"And now I'm stuck with it," I said, defeated. Steven sighed and went back to drawing. "Whenever I draw something, whenever I want a bag of chips, I have to live knowing it might kill me. Sure, it'll usually work. But one time, it might backfire, and it'll be my demise. One day, the notebook's going to grow up and murder me in my sleep itself. And before that, I have to live, knowing that whatever I draw in here might try to kill me."

Steven stared at me. "You know, you could just get rid of it," he said.

"One last thing! I…" I trailed off, finally taking in what Steven just said. "Wait a second, what did you just say?"

"The notebook? I can poof it away if you don't want it to get in danger, replace it with a new one altogether. Room, I want-"

"No! Stop!" I yelled, scared of his voice.

He put his hand on my shoulder to reassure me. "There's no need to worry. I'll be careful with the wording. We made thousands of wants, it won't hurt to get rid of the notebook. It's okay." His eyes met mine. "Room, I-"

"No!" I yelled again, my voice cracking. My anger turned to desperation in a heartbeat. "Please, stop."

Steven saw the change, as clear as day. "W-what's wrong?"

"Don't…" my voice died out. "Don't destroy it. I need it…"

Steven looked at me, confused. "But I thought…"

"I know what I said. I know, it's dangerous. But…"

I struggled to put it into words. How I felt about the notebook, it was something… special to me. I equated it to Steven's being dangerous, but to me, it was more than that. It felt more like a limb, or a sense. It let me do amazing things. Just because my eyes were going bad, I wasn't going to tear them out and replace them. I put on glasses, I didn't put in robotic ones.

I knew that it was terrible logic. It made no sense why I would care so much about a metal wire stringing together a few sheets of paper. But that was how I felt. And feelings weren't logical. It had saved my life. And there was something more to it that I couldn't even describe to myself.

I finally thought of the only way that could truly convey how I felt.

"Hey Steven," I finally said. "Dance with me."

I stretched out my palm, and gave him the choice to take it.

Steven was a little reluctant. "Are you sure you want to fuse right now? Unstable emotions and all, you remember what happened with Jeff, don't you…?"

But I shook my head, my emotions finally put in check. "I'm fine. But even if I wasn't, I don't want to fuse," I said. "I want to dance."

I saw a million questions going though Steven's head. But he didn't ask them. He just took my hand, and we began to dance.

There was no music this time. Just Steven and me.

Footsteps clearing wispy pink clouds out of the way, we wordlessly danced. We drifted away from our beds, into the endless cloud sea. The glow didn't start right away this time, I didn't get a window into Steven's emotions. Somehow, though, I felt it was okay.

It was true, we weren't perfectly matched. Steven wanted to understand, while I wanted to say something. While that would work in conversation, it doesn't in fusion. Fusion isn't about one person talking and the other listening. It's a conversation, in and of itself.

It took a bit of dancing, what felt like floating on air, for the state to finally happen. I can't say for sure exactly why it took so long. But I think it was because I was trying to say something, and Steven was trying to listen. That's how conversation works, but not fusion. Fusion is a conversation in and of itself. Both sides needed to give and take.

So, as we dance, I let go. I started listening more, and Steven started 'talking,' although both of us were completely silent. I was going to fuse, or glow, or whatever was about to happen, because I wanted to be with him, not because I wanted to use it as a means to an end. I liked fusing with him.

Our footsteps finally synchronized, and I let Steven in. A pink glow enveloped us. I saw not only his current state, but also his memories. I saw his memories of his caring for me. How, when I was going off the rails, when I freaked out at my failing to understand what my notebook's gem meant, when I was throwing myself a pity party, he stayed calm. Exactly as I had done for him two days ago. We really weren't so different, huh?

Steven, thought? He saw exactly what I wanted him to see. What my notebook really meant to me. It really was a part of me, and I couldn't bear to lose it. And that was it. And somehow, that was the most surprising to me. I thought he would see a deep inner turmoil within me. That I wanted to let go of my notebook. But he didn't see it. I wanted to keep my notebook, no matter what logic said otherwise. And sometimes emotions trump logic.

And he saw something more, the thing that I didn't want him to see.

As my emotions saw his reaching towards that final nugget of information, I stepped back suddenly, attempting to cut off the connection.

But we kept glowing. I couldn't sever the connection. He saw what I thought of the notebook. The biggest reason I wanted to keep the notebook. The _real_ reason. It was because… it was a gift from Steven. One to share the power of this room. And I didn't want to waste it.

I blinked a tear out of my eye. I… I didn't want Steven to know that part. I wasn't normally sentimental, I didn't want him to see that side of me…

Steven wasn't embarrassed, though. He thought it was just the kind of sentimental thing that _he_ would do. So if he would do it, why not me? He leaned forwards to wipe my eye.

I expected to fuse when he touched me. But we stayed separate, despite the light glow surrounding us.

"Need a vial for that one?" Steven said, with a light smile.

"I think I'm fine," I said. He let the tear drop to the floor.

I shook my head. "What is this?" I said.

"You mean the glowing?"

"Of course."

"I dunno."

I laughed. "Of course you don't. I have a window into your mind."

He shrugged. "Well, fair point, I guess." We laughed.

We stood there, just listening to each other's pure emotions, somewhere in between fusion and normality, somewhere in between a state of being two people and a state of being in between two people and one. Something I didn't understand. Something like fusion.

* * *

 _A/N: You know what would be cool? Well, I don't have great cover art yet…. So I think it'd be awesome if someone made some! Like, some fanart, for the story! I guess I'm bringing this up now because I had a few ideas. I thought of doing the notebook, with it's blue gem showing through to a sketch of the vial!_

 _But then I had other, equally good ideas! What about a picture of Connie in the sea of clouds. Rocket boots, notebook under one arm, locket wrapped around her neck, staring confidently towards the future. Or maybe just the vial, with a single tear stored inside. It'd be better than a generic screenshot from an indirect kiss, you know?_

 _I should say I'm not expecting anybody to do it. I put this story out here for free, I don't need anything in return. But it would really make my day if I got a PM or a review saying someone likes the story enough to go the extra mile, and is willing to give their time to help this story. I know, it's sentimental, but it would mean a lot to me._

 _BTW, sorry for the long wait. No real reason, It's mostly because I just got back to school and it's time for the midterms, and I've been busy._

 _More on the content of the story, I guess this chapter has a bit of shipping in the middle… I kind of got a review requesting it, and who am I to say no to my fans? So shipping it is!_

 _If I'm completely honest with myself… I liked this chapter a lot. There are a lot of elements at play, the mystery, the hints of romance, the emotions, the problem solving, but reading over the chapter I wrote while editing, I like it a lot. I want to know if you guys think the same._

 _Of course, remember to favorite and follow. If this chapter didn't convince you, I must be a worse writer than I think I am._

 _Next time, then? It all depends. I think I'm doing a montage chapter, starting with day 10-2, setting up a multi-chapter arc. This time, I have some semblance of a plan of some upcoming plot threads, but often I'm at my best going with the flow. So I'm thinking it'll be a blend of planned stuff and stuff that comes out of the blue. See you guys then!_


	10. Days 10(2)-14: Rediscovering Joy

_A/N: Sorry about the long wait. In a nutshell, it was writer's block. I'd suggest brushing up on the last chapter, so you remember what's going on. I won't stall you with details, let's get started already!_

* * *

Days 10-14: Rediscovering Joy

* * *

\- - -Day 10 (2)- - -

We broke from our "glow." I felt myself separate from Steven, back into my own emotions. Suddenly, I was overcome with exhaustion. I fell back onto Steven's bed. It was weird. Every other time, the glow had been so short. But after feeling his emotions for a few minutes like that, suddenly it was _wrong_ to not be able to feel what Steven was feeling. If felt just like when I first diffused with him.

The feeling of exhaustion subsided, and I pulled myself back up. I glanced over at Steven, and he seemed to be getting over the same feelings I had been.

"Just for the record, that notebook doesn't mean _that_ much to me," he said. "Like, really, I wouldn't mind if you threw it away. I mean, yeah, it was a gift, but…"

I laughed. "It might not be important to you anymore, but it's important to me."

He shrugged. "I tried. Don't blame me when it tries to kill us later."

I smiled reassuringly. "It's going to work out. Trust me"

* * *

Later, we put together some tests for the notebook. Just because it's abilities seemed the same didn't mean they _were_ the same. Despite the situation, I was confident in our abilities.

That didn't mean I agreed with Steven's first test. Like, in the slightest.

"You want me to do **WHAT**!?" I said.

"It's just like I told you, Connie. We're not sure the 'supersize' mechanic is still in play. If you draw something without writing "normal" next to it, it might not go horribly wrong!"

"Am I the only one who remembers what happened the _first_ time I didn't write normal next to something? We almost died!"

Steven brushed me off. "Just try making a drawing of a giant pillow, or something that. Even if it was giant, it couldn't hurt us. Then, just don't write 'normal' next to it!"

I pursed my lips. "No. A giant pillow is _still deadly_."

"We'll never know unless we try, Connie."

"No."

"You can erase it within seconds."

"Are you _asking_ for an opportunity for the room to kill us!?"

"You're the one who's not destroying the notebook."

"And aren't you the one who wats me to destroy it? You want to tempt fate further than we already have!?"

Steven sighed. "That's it," he said. He snatched the notebook out of my hands and drew a flower. I winced, ready for a giant flower to burst out from any direction and crush us.

And… nothing happened. Or, something happened, I guess. A single, tiny flower burst from the ground.

I stared at him. "Give me that!" I said, snatching it from his hands. I quickly turned the page and drew another flower. Now there were two flowers sprouting from the ground. I drew a pillow, and one appeared next to both of them.

"I told you it'd be okay, Connie."

"No you didn't! How could you have known!?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Shut up!"

He laughed, though I didn't think it was very funny. We were trying to stay safe, weren't we? What good would a way out be if we didn't make it out at all?"

I sighed. Nothing had gone wrong. And Steven _did_ have a good intuition. I let it go.

The rest of the tests turned no new results. The only change was a stronger focus in the notebook's creation process. The power was the same as it had been since day 2, no stronger and no weaker.

After that, Steven experimented with his new notebook. He mostly focused on getting better at drawing. I summoned a regular old notebook for him to practice with. He was a pretty fast learner, all things considered.

Time flew by quickly. Before I knew it, the day was over, and we went to sleep.

* * *

\- - -Day 11- - -

When I woke up today, my notebook was on the floor again, even though I swore I never touched it during the night. I reached down and grabbed it. I was a bit wary, but I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. I decided I would talk with Steven about it when he woke up.

I glanced back at my notebook. I paused. Something about it seemed… off. I couldn't place my finger on it, but it made me uneasy. I put on a brave face for Steven yesterday, but now that I thought back, it all didn't seem to add up. This seemed too good to be true. A sinister-looking gem appears, and the only other notable change is a direct power-up? Things that were too good to be true always seemed to be false.

I studied the notebook again, but I couldn't figure out what was so off about it. The gem was there, just like yesterday. I shook my head. Maybe it just felt wrong because I wasn't used to the gem. We had tested it extensively yesterday, right? So why was I so unsure?

Because it could, at any time, turn into a murder death machine?

Yeah, that seemed to be the reason I was scared.

Still, I lowered the pen onto the page slowly, and drew another 3ds for myself. When it came down to boredom vs threat to life, boredom won. A 3ds appeared in my hand.

My hesitation dissipated when it worked as intended. Of course, it was okay. I'd used the thing for days, why would it go wrong now?

With the danger gone, a smile swept over my face. I had an amazing idea. I wanted to play some video games, yes, but this time, I didn't want to play any old game I'd played a million times before. I wanted something brand new…

* * *

Around 30 minutes of fine-tuning later, I was finally ready. It started simple, making false sequels to real games to test the waters. Then, I wtarted work on my own game. It was harder than I thought it would be. I wrote up several games in my notebook, but when I plugged them in, they always felt wrong. I wanted to make an action game, but I had trouble striking a balance between games with weapons that took 5 million years to use like dark souls and the way too quick and floaty games like DMC. I wanted to build a game with a very specific toolset. And eventually, I reached a perfect compromise. It was different from a lot of games I'd played. It was a dark souls style game, but with a hyper-fast weapon. It was all about going in the few openings the enemy provided, getting one or two shots, then dodging back out! Just like the way I fought.

Oh, and I removed it from the 3DS and put it on console, of course. Why play on a handheld when there's a TV available?

With a game perfectly designed to suit my interests, time flew by in an instant. Before I knew it, I heard a voice behind me. "You're having fun," it commented.

I paused the game and looked over my shoulder to see Steven standing there. I shrugged. "What can I say? It's a lot more fun to play a game if you can instantly change any criticism you might have with a game at will."

He raised an eyebrow. "And you put yourself in it?"

He gestured at the screen. The game I had built had a main character who was a female teenager with dark skin who used a single, pink sword to slash down hoards of monsters with gems in their chests. She had a striking similarity to myself.

I defended myself. "Well, I said that I was changing criticisms I had with games, didn't I? What if a problem I have with games is that I'm not in them?"

He sighed. "Never change, Connie," he said.

"Hey, I put you in the game, too! Want to play?"

He grinned, but held up his hands to hide it. He took a deep breath, and when he came out from behind his hands, he was dead serious. He cracked his thumbs. "I have to warn you," he said. "I'm not going to go easy on you…" He grabbed the controller and set himself into an optimal gaming position.

"The game's co-op," I deadpanned. "I haven't even made a versus mode yet."

"…I knew that," Steven said. "The 'you' was referring to the enemies."

* * *

What started out as a simple distraction became a massive project. The next 10 pages of my notebook became filled with details about the game, as broad as "The cutscenes are beautiful," and as specific as "Connie's dress is a little brighter." We shaped the story into an epic adventure, filled with action-packed cutscenes. We fleshed out the two of our characters. We added new playable characters, including Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, Peridot… and Lapis, too. We tuned the gameplay to perfection. And yes, we added a competitive mode. For the record, it ended in a tie. Before we knew it, the entire day had passed, without any incident to speak of.

I fell asleep happy.

* * *

\- - -Day 12- - -

When I woke up, Steven was playing our game. I glanced over at the table. I was honestly a bit surprised to find the notebook sitting there. After two days in a row of it mysteriously falling off, and now, it was fine. I glanced at my notebook. Despite being on the desk, I still felt a sinking feeling in my gut. Something seemed off, just like it had the day before.

I didn't know if I was excited or disappointed. Yes, things were getting back to normal on one end, but on the other, it meant another theory bit the dust. It couldn't have had anything to do with the ground, because if it did, I wouldn't have that feeling of wrongness on that day.

Why did it feel so wrong, anyhow? I stared at the notebook. Everything was the same, right? The same pages, the same writing, the same cover, and the same gem…

Wait, no, it was a similar gem, but I'd never examined it in detail. _Was_ it the same gem?

Steven interrupted my thoughts. "Hey, Connie. Wanna play our game? I made a few new levels!"

I shook it off. "Yeah, sure," I said. I walked over to his console. As we played, I kept the book in mind.

We played the game for an hour or so. It really was a fun play, but really hard. In order to beat some of the harder levels, we had to be in perfect sync. Fortunately, sync was our specialty!

In the final boss, it was close. We had attempted it ten times, so far. The boss patterns were insane, and everything hit like a truck! I suggested reprogramming it to make it less… impossible, but Steven wouldn't budge. On the 11th attempt, though, everything was going right. We said nothing, just concentrated. With his shield and my sword, we were impenetrable. Finally, together, we defeated the Diamonds!

I swore my controller was steaming by the end. But we beat it.

I glanced at Steven. He was glowing! I noticed, so was I! I held in a laugh; it took superpowers to get the coordination needed to beat the fight. Unbelievable. Maybe we _weren't_ the perfect game designers…

And then, my smile faded. This was us at our bests. We were glowing, we were perfectly in sync with each other. We could beat a level that was nearly unbeatable. All this, and we were no closer to getting out. We were supposed to be able to do anything together, and with this newfound teamwork, the best we had was half of an explanation.

I didn't talk to Steven about it. I didn't want to dampen our victory.

With negative emotions clouding me, I fully expected the glow to vanish. But… it didn't. I looked up to see Steven, with a glum look on his face. Had my emotions made him the way he was? Or… did his emotions affect me? If this was like fusion, did our emotions affect one another?

Whatever the case, we couldn't let doubt overcome us. I smiled and a second later, Steven did the same.

"We're going to get out of here. I'm not one to break my promise," I said.

"We're going to get out of here. It's going to be okay," Steven said at the same time.

We both blinked several times. Steven stifled a chuckle. Then we both burst out laughing.

I still didn't know how this glow thing worked, but I liked it.

The glow faded. "Wanna go for another round?" Steven said.

"We beat every level in the game!"

Steven grabbed his notebook. "Give me 2 minutes."

I chuckled. "Sure, why not?"

* * *

After the match, Steven wanted to play the game more, but I said I wanted a little time to myself. He shrugged and kept fine-tuning the game. I stepped to the side because something was still bothering me about my notebook. I understood I might feel uneasy the day after a big change, but again 2 days later? I knew, I was probably overreacting, but I trusted my heart, and it was sending me so many warning signals.

I looked at the gem again. Something about it was completely _off_. Not just the fact that the gem existed, something specific was wrong.

And then, I realized what was bugging me so much. At least, I thought I did. The gem imbedded into its surface seemed to have gotten bigger. At least, slightly bigger.

I stared at the gem more. It was subtle, but I swore it was at least a little bigger. It was subtle. Heck, if I hadn't honed my senses with Pearl so much, I wouldn't have seen it, and even with that, I wasn't 100% sure. If it _had_ grown, it was by no more than a fraction of an inch in diameter.

I needed some way to prove it…

I smiled. Now, if only we were in the one place I knew of where I could physically recreate my memories to compare the past to the present…

"Could you come over here?" Steven said. "I want to test a new boss fight."

"Not now!" I said. "I think I figured something out about my notebook!"

Steven's smile slowly faded. "…Oh…" he said. "Is something wrong, um, with it?"

"I don't know!" I said, excited.

He sighed. "Information, please?"

"I think the gem on the notebook is getting bigger!" His eyes widened. "But," I said, before he could object. "I'm not sure. I want your help to test it."

He averted his eyes. "What do you need me to do?"

"I get that we want to avoid asking the room what to do, but I need to see my memories. I think my notebook's gem's been getting bigger for the past few nights. I want to compare it. I need you to ask the room to active the mode where the room shows us our memories."

Steven shifted his weight from side to side. "We made these notebooks to avoid asking the room for anything, didn't we?"

"One request from the room should be fine. We'll be sure to word it carefully. But I want to make sure I have this right."

I could see a million thoughts running through Steven's head. He finally nodded. "Okay. But if you don't figure it out the first time, I'm not going to do it again."

We brainstormed what exactly Steven would say.

* * *

"Room, show us a holographic image of what Connie's notebook looked like when it first grew a gem."

…Nothing.

"Seriously?" I said. "We worked on that for 30 minutes!"

I rubbed my face. There were three pages of erased pen scrawled throughout its pages.

"Wait a minute," Steven said. "We didn't specify _where_ it should spawn, did we?"

I facepalmed. "I _knew_ we missed something. Now we need to figure out what we can say to erase it."

"Wait," Steven said. "Don't just assume it spawned the gem on Jupiter. Maybe it's somewhere nearby."

I thought about that. When the gem grew, the notebook was on the floor. So did that mean.? I brushed away the clouds at my feet, and sure enough, there it was. "Well I feel dumb."

"So is the gem different!?"

"Oh, right." I took a deep breath. "Here goes." I turned on my rocket boots to dispel the clouds and lowered my notebook to the ground. My hands shook. I was so excited, but so scared at the same time. I wanted to be proven wrong, but I so desperately wanted to be proven right. I set the book down. The gems overlapped. The real image enveloped the hologram. On the pure pink background, the real gem shone ever so slightly bigger than the hologram. It was glowing stronger. It was ever so slightly bigger.

I stared at the floor for a long time. "Okay," I said. "You were right."

Steven tilted his head. "…Huh? But aren't you the one who noticed?"

"Not about that. I'm sorry that I said it would all be okay. We should have poofed my notebook. How could I have been so dense? Of course it was dangerous. I thought if we were careful, it would all be okay. We could make it work. But it's still getting worse, isn't it? You were right. We should poof it."

Steven stared at me for a long time. "No."

"…What?"

"Please. Give it one more day."

I raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you the one who was against keeping my notebook?"

"Yeah I _was._ I changed my mind."

I blinked several times. "Are you sure? I thought you were the one against unnececary risks."

"I'm sure!" he said. "I know you'll regret it if you get rid of it. We can test it again tomorrow. If it gets worse… I don't know what we'll do. Please, just one more day."

"I don't want to get rid of my notebook, either. But at this rate, I don't know how long it'll be until it turns into a monster. I _thought_ I knew why it was happening. It made so much sense: the gem formed because it was in contact with the floor. But then I-"

"No, you were right," Steven said. "I… the notebook was on the floor when I woke up."

I stared at him. "What?"

"I didn't want you to freak out, okay!? So now that you know, we can make sure it doesn't touch the floor tomorrow and we'll be fine."

I held up my hands. "No, no, wait a minute. Why did you not tell me, again?"

"I didn't think it was a big deal."

"I like knowing the facts. You know that. You've literally been in my head."

"You want to know _all_ the facts? Okay then! I should say, then, that…" he trailed off. "Confession: I was going to come up with some sort of quip and say something boring I hadn't told you, but then I couldn't think of anything."

I snorted. "Very funny. You get what I mean, though, right? Just make sure you tell me the next time something weird happens."

He paused, then said, "Okay."

"Really. It's important to us, if we ever want to get out of here."

"I said I'd be honest with you! Do you want me to prove it with a blood sacrifice!?"

I chuckled again. "Thank you." I blinked a few ties to clear my thoughts. "Let me step back. You're okay with keeping the notebook around for one last day?"

He nodded. "Think of it as an experiment: We cage the notebook down, and if the gem doesn't grow, we learn something new."

I blinked several times. "Oh. Wow, I didn't think of that at all."

"You don't have to seem so shocked about it!"

"Sorry," I said. "Sometimes I forget you're not the person you were when we first met."

"It's been 2 years since then!"

"I said _sometimes_ , didn't I!?" We both burst out giggling.

"You know this is going to bite us in the butt, right?" I said.

"Has anything not since we got here?"

"Fair enough." We both laughed.

Steven poofed away the hologram, and we began development on a whole new video game.

* * *

\- - -Day 13- - -

I glanced over at the table. Steven drew a cage around the notebook the day before. Sure enough, it was okay. Laying there like any inanimate object should. I smiled. Our solution worked, for once.

I frowned. I had woken up first. I couldn't touch the floor, obviously. And the only object that could help… was hidden in a cage.

Why did I never think these things through?

I sighed and grabbed a game controller. I guessed I could replay a few levels while I waited.

* * *

When Steven woke up, we prepared a hologram on the floor again. I compared the notebook to the yesterday's. Sure enough, the gem was the exact same size.

"I think that's it!" I said. "Anything we leave on the floor overnight grows a gem!"

Steven cocked his head. "You sure? I remember leaving a few things on the floor that didn't turn into monsters…"

"Don't you remember? On day 5 or so, we poofed every object we summoned that we forgot to despawn! All we have to do to ensure we say safe is to poof everything we build! We've done it a few times before, too! We figured it all out!"

Steven, weirdly, averted his eyes. "Yeah. I'm sure that, um, poofing everything will solve it…"

"Why the long face?"

"Huh?" he said, glancing up. "Oh, um… the thing is… I had a problem with that plan."

"What is it?"

He paused for a good five seconds. "Well, um… we… shouldn't do that!"

"Do what?"

"The thing! We're not supposed to use my powers over the room! We can't do that without using that! Do you want to get us all in danger?"

"What? Could you use nouns?"

"We can't poof everything in this room without putting us all in danger, using my voice."

"Oh," I said. "Huh. I guess it _could_ be a risk. But isn't it worth it to make sure we aren't attacked again?"

"Don't we _want_ to get attacked? We want to figure out what's going on, right?"

I shook my head, bewildered. "Yeah, but not by everything at once! It'd be far more efficient to, like, put out something weak, like a feather, and let _it_ grow a gem. We could keep it contained and see what happened."

"…Oh." Steven hung his head. "I have no objections."

"No need to be so melodramatic. Now, come over here, let's draw up a feather and brainstorm what to say so we evaporate everything except my notebook and said feather."

* * *

\- - -Day 14- - -

The rest of yesterday was uneventful. Steven waved his hands, and everything except a the few specified things disappeared, as far as I could tell. The question went fine. For the record, it was, "I want to poof away everything we've spawned except for us, our notebooks, Our pens, and this feather." After that, I summoned replacements for the things I disappeared, my rocket boots and my teleportation locket. We made sure to train a little, so we'd be ready for an attack. Otherwise, we did bug-fixing in our game. The notebook, unfortunately, helped a little less that preferably in _that_ regard.

Last night, I locked the notebook in a cage that I was able to open with a key. I unlocked the cage and looted my notebook from its place.

I didn't feel like working on my game today. So what was I going to do now that I couldn't do without leaving this bed?

I didn't want to play video games. But still I asked, what was something I could only do here?

Maybe I could make a new console. I'd always wanted to do something like a full-body MMO ala Sword Art Online.

Now that I thought about it, why bother? We could make anything we wanted in this world, why escape to another one when we could recreate whatever we wanted right here!?

Wait a minute…

I smiled. I didn't need the notebook with a gem in it. I needed the one that I could buy at any old store. I pulled the notebook from my dress pocket dimension. Then, I wrote "Dress Pocket Dimension" down because that sounded cool.

I started writing rules to the most interesting game ever conceived.

* * *

"So here's how it works," I said. "You have your notebook, right?"

Steven rubbed his eyes. "I woke up 2 minutes ago, Connie. Can you at least let me brush my teeth…?"

"I'll tell you as you do that!"

Steven sighed as he drew a toothbrush.

"I want to train with you. I want to duel."

"Haven't we been doing that?" he said just before he stuck the brush in his mouth.

"…With our notebooks." Steven cocked his head as he brushed, but said nothing. "It's simple, really. We've been training with our weapons, right? But that's not all we have in this place. If an enemy attacks, we have these!" I held up my notebook. "We can summon whatever we want without breaking a sweat! We should learn to fight with _these!"_

Steven spit the toothpaste onto the ground, then closed his eyes in thought. "Wouldn't it be a bit dangerous to fight with weapons that can kill somebody in basically infinite ways?"

"I thought of that!" I said. I pulled up my rule sheet. "To make it safe, we start by drawing a box on one of our pages, labelling the whole thing, "Nerf." Yes, I know, it's heavy-handed, but the room can read our minds. It understands that 'Nerf' means 'A non-dangerous version of.' I tested it earlier with things like a chainsaw, a grenade, and a fleet of attack piranhas, so I know it'll be perfectly safe."

Steven contemplated that for about 15 seconds. "Okay," he said. "If you're telling the truth, I think it'll work."

"And don't forget the best part!" I said. "It means we have to be careful with our usage. We have to be creative. We only get one page to work with in this fight."

Steven smiled. "That sounds pretty fun!"

"I know, right! Okay, real quick, the rest of the rules: we start with no armor and no weapons except for our respective notebooks. Again, we only have the one page to work with. Any blows that would have been fatal from a non-nerf weapon constitute a win. Also, no using your powers, that'd be totally unfair. Feel free to terraform the arena however you want, but remember, it takes precious space in your notebook! You _can_ erase, but it will take some time to do so. I think that's everything."

Steven already had his notebook open and had his box labeled. "So when do we start?"

I smiled. "How about… NOW!"

I instantly knocked down my bed to use as a shield. Hiding behind it, I put the pen to the page of my notebook. I'd had plenty of time to decide on my first move while I waited for Steven to wake up. I couldn't draw a portal gun or anything, due to the nerf restriction, but I had plenty of options. I drew a replica of Rose's sword, first and foremost. Then, I drew a loaded gun, which spawned a nerf one, obviously. Finally, I drew a vest and a mask, imagining then on myself. It appeared, protecting my chest. Okay, now I was ready to fight.

I was sure Steven must have been finishing his preparations. I gave him a lot of sass sometimes, but he was nothing if not a competent fighter. Despite the low warning, I knew he would have something prepared. I burst out from behind the bed, gun blazing. I saw a red blur, and I didn't think, I shot, three shots off straight ahead.

But it when my vision cleared a split second later, I saw it was a decoy. Steven drew a mock-up of himself to stall for time. It was little more than a cardboard cutout. He was still hiding behind his own bed.

In another split second, I weighed my options. Waiting gave him time to prepare, but running in head-first meant I might have been falling into another trap.

I came to a decision. I drew a nerf grenade. It spawned in my hands. I pulled the pin, waited a few seconds, then lobbed it over Steven's bed wall so he would have as little time as possible to react. I hid back behind my own bed and waited for the explosion. Sure enough, a few seconds later, there was a resounding, " **BOOM!** "

I didn't celebrate, though. Not yet. Because I didn't hear an exclamation of pain or admission of defeat.

I drew another grenade, just in case, then glanced out of my place behind the bed. Nothing. I ran out of my hiding spot, over to Steven. I found only metal shell that resembled that of a turtle. Steven was still hiding underneath it!

I smiled. This was going to be too easy. He hid under it to protect himself, but it would be his downfall. I grabbed the grenade from my holster. I quickly lifted the shell to throw it in. However, the moment I lifted it, there was a bright flash of light. I felt something splash all over me just before I could fire! My vision went blurry. When it cleared, I saw pink paint all over everything… including myself. Which meant I had lost.

"Dang…" I muttered. "OKAY!" I yelled. "YOU WIN!"

I looked around. Around 50 feet away, a figure rose from beneath the clouds. It was Steven, cloaked in a pink cloak to hide in the clouds. I smiled. He really did pull one over on me, didn't he?

"For the record, I saw your 'the game starts now' moment a mile away," Steven said.

"Cheater. You only know because you've been inside of my head!" I said.

"I was simply using the resources given to me."

I rolled my eyes. "Anyways, how'd you do it? Whatever it was, I sure didn't see it coming.

"Simple, really!" Steven said. "After your dive for cover, I knew I had time to plan. You're a fast drawer, but to make adequate equipment, you'd need a good 45 seconds. So, after taking 5 seconds to draw a stick figure and imagining a decoy, I set a trap. I made a shell to be near impentatrable and set a trap to activate when it was lifted to squirt paint everywhere, simulating an explosive. Then, I made a pink blanket and hid under it, and waited for you to lift the container and blow yourself up. I didn't expect the explosive, but in only served to make the victory even sweeter!"

"Clever," I said. "But I won't fall for it again!"

"Best two out of three?"

"Of course!"

As our competitive spirits flared, we began to glow. Motivated by a common cause.

I examined my glowing skin. "This hasn't happened in a few days," I said. "We really need to figure out how this works," I said.

Steven grinned. "You don't like it or something?"

I thought back to past times it had happened. "It's nice and all, but sometimes, I don't want you to see my deepest secrets."

Steven's expression morphed into one of shock. The glow faded in an instant.

In that instant, I saw an image: my notebook, lying on the floor. Something, as far as I was aware, he'd only seen that way once, when he found it on the floor and put it on my desc, so not to worry me. I was confused. That wasn't a secret, not anymore. That wasn't the most striking part. Right before the link broke, I saw a window into his emotions. It was a wave of intense guilt… and an equally strong sense of fear. Not just of his secret getting discovered, but of something much more specific. He didn't just not tell me about the notebook on the floor to be nice. He was scared.

I raised my eyes to look at Steven. He looked away.

"What did you do?"

* * *

 _A/N: I'm sorry about the long wait. I had serious writer's block every time I tried to work on this, or basically anything. But I'm back!_

 _So… about the real show: that twist, huh? I'll try to incorporate that into the story. My original plan intended Rose to, you know, NOT be you-know-who, but I can make it just as interesting with the new developments._

 _For the record, I was working on this before that episode came out. I planned on releasing this todayish anyhow. Also, I didn't plan on the cliffhanger, but what can you do? Sometimes, they just happen, and it's beyond your control…_

 _Remember to leave a review! They warm my heart. Hope you forgive my lack of creativity in the way I ask. But I worked hard on this chapter that I feel justified in asking._

"For the record, you're a lazy bum."

 _Thanks, Connie. Anyways, thanks for sticking with this story, those who're still here. And for the newbies, welcome! Hope you're ready for a bumpy ride!_

 _Next time: I think it's pretty darn obvious what happens next time. Expect that in no more than a week. You have my word, if that means anything. See you guys then, hopefully._


	11. Days 14(2)-15: Little White Lies

Days 14-15: Little White Lies

\- - -Day 14(2)- - -

* * *

I stared Steven down. He averted his eyes.

"I didn't want to make you worry," Steven said.

"Worry about what!?"

"I didn't want you to lose hope."

"Steven, come on. What are you talking about!?"

He didn't run away. He didn't lash out at me. He was silent.

"How long have you been hiding this from me?" No response. "Since you picked the notebook off the floor?"

He lowered his head further, obscuring his face. "I didn't want you to be mad at me."

"Steven. What did you do?"

Back to silence.

"You know that you can tell me."

Nothing.

"You're my best friend.

Nothing.

"Please, Steven. We're trapped here together. We don't need to fight."

A third batch of nothing.

I scowled. "Fine." I stormed away.

For a second, I wondered if I could force the room to show me his memories. But not only would that be unethical, it would be impossible without Steven there to ask the room in the first place.

I sighed and collapsed against my bed. Why did everything always have to be so difficult? We were supposed to be focused on escaping, weren't we? So why were we keeping secrets from one another, instead?

I considered telling that to Steven but brushed the thought aside. He hadn't listened to anything else I said.

"I just want us to work together," I muttered to myself. "Why is that so hard for him to understand?"

I kicked at the floor and the clouds lightly swirled at my feet.

A rush came over me, one I hadn't felt in a while. Homesickness. I missed a time when we didn't find it normal to lie to each other. I remembered a time when we promised to be open. But as this place drifted us closer, suddenly it seemed to drift us so far apart. We'd been here two weeks, now. I didn't know which was scarier: that, or the fact it was starting to feel normal.

I sighed and flipped open my DS. Maybe that could distract me…

* * *

All day, I waited for Steven to fess up. To tell me the truth. But it never happened. He stayed in his side of the room, never looking back at me.

A few hours after the initial incident, I tried to talk to him again, but when he saw me coming, he walked away without a word. I didn't bother walking after him.

As I walked back to my bed, my foot brushed against a strange object sitting on the floor. It seemed to be little more than a simple box. I examined it for a few seconds. It didn't seem to have any hinges or anything, it was just a solid box. I certainly hadn't drawn it.

"Hey, Steven?" I said. "You forgot to erase…" My voice trailed off. Right, he wasn't speaking with me.

I set it on my desk so it wouldn't grow a gem.

If he still wasn't speaking with me, I supposed I had no choice but to open my DS and fail to keep mind off Steven.

15 minutes later, I heard muted footprints approach on the cloudy floor.

"…Hey," Steven said.

I glanced upwards. "Hi."

"You, um, wanted me to erase something?"

I averted my eyes. "Never mind."

He averted his own eyes. He shifted his weight to one foot, prepared to walk away. But he stopped himself. He took a deep breath and met my eyes again. "I'm sorry, okay!?" he said. "I did what I thought was right and now we're both feeling awful. I don't know what to think anymore. Yesterday, everything was fine, and now because I screwed up, it did more harm than if I just told the truth. So I'm sorry."

I saw his eyes, filled with sympathy. "I…" I didn't know what to say. "Please. What did you do?"

He took a deep breath, then 2 more. He turned away. Even now, he wouldn't tell me.

I cleared my throat. "You, uh, wanna play a few rounds of Mario Kart?" I said. "I still have a few characters to try out."

He nodded silently. I tossed him a DS.

* * *

We played for a few hours. Never did we come close to reaching a glow. We hardly talked in between matches. Instead, I doodled in my notebook about tracks we could race on next.

Every match we played, I got more and more frustrated. This was for for a few reasons, chief among them: I won every single race we played. It was like he wasn't even trying.

I wanted to be angry at him. I wanted to be furious. But all I could muster was an ever-increasing frustration.

I threw my DS to the side. It broke, but it would only take a few words in the book to fix it.

"Connie!?" Steven said, alarmed. I simply sighed and picked up our console. I couldn't keep up the façade that was our current relationship if Steven was unwilling to do the same.

I was only slightly surprised when, after a single round, Steven drew a controller and sat beside me. It was kind of funny; he isolated himself from me but when I tried to give him his wish and ignored him, he refused to leave.

I clicked "Competitive" in the main menu and selected myself. Steven did the same.

The visual detail was striking. Or maybe it wasn't at all: perfect visuals wouldn't be that difficult for a being with near-limitless power.

"Steven, you could end this," I said.

He pressed the start button on his controller.

Text lined the screen:

 **\- - -Match Start- - -**

The two fighters spawned amid a massive ruinous set piece. Plenty of places for stealth and strategy. However, neither of us took those opportunities. Our avatars slowly walked to the center of the temple and met, eye to eye.

We added a feature yesterday. Whenever one of us spoke, the person we were controlling would mimic our lip movements as if they said it themselves. Technically, when placed in an actual video game console, it would be incredibly difficult to program, if not impossible without a Kinect camera or something. Even more so to do it well. But so what? Technological improbability bended when there was magic involved. While it added an extra dimension to Co-op, now, as the characters sparred, it seemed as if they fought for something more than their notebook-based programming dictated.

* * *

The two of us slowly circled one another. No stealth, no underhanded tactics. Just a straight-up fight. We stood in the midst of a ruinous temple. I didn't know where it was, maybe an ancient gem structure. It didn't seem to matter much in the moment.

Steven made the first move. He threw a shield at me, imbedded with spikes. As I dodged to the side, he closed the difference in distance between us. He brought up his spike-filled bubble and planned to sqash me flat. Fortunately, I had the reflexes to jump over it, using my sword to vault off of the top of the bubble, popping it in the process. I landed a few feet away from him.

I levelled my sword at him. "I don't want to fight you," I said.

"It's too late for me to tell you the truth."

"No, it's not!" I said. "Was it too late after Jasper first attacked? I sure remember you telling me the truth. Have I been living dream or something all this time?"

"That was to protect you!" Steven said. "And I already know I was wrong back then."

I paused. "So this isn't to protect me? Then what-"?

I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence. He lunged at me again. I kicked at his feet to knock him off balance. Unfortunately, he still had a trick up his sleeve. When his legs gave way, he didn't fall. He activated his floating powers and carried the momentum of his whole body to hit me hard with his shield. I flew across the room and impacted a wall. Battered, I rose.

I ran forwards and swung my sword. Steven raised his shield to defend against it. "Then why can't you tell me?"

He froze. I supposed it was a question he didn't expect me to ask.

I used that chance to strike. I broke from his shield, rolled around him, and slashed him in the back. I didn't go for the kill, of course, but I made sure to do damage. Steven fell to the ground.

"So, what then? You can't say what you're hiding, and you can't even tell me why?"

A lesser opponent would goad him, call him a coward for his unwillingness to give the simplest of answers. I was no such opponent. My sword seeked nothing but the truth.

"Prove to me you care about me. If not enough to tell me your secret, then at least enough to tell me why." I lowered my sword on his body to prevent him from escaping.

"That was low," Steven said.

Steven opened a bubble, blowing me backwards. I landed safely. I was angry for an instant; he was still pushing me away! But no, his defenses were weakening. He could have skewered me with a spiked bubble, there and then. But he chose not to.

I ran foreward and slashed the bubble down once again. My sword again met with his shield. "Is it because you don't want to break a promise?"

No reaction.

"Is it because it doesn't affect me?"

Nothing.

"So it does affect me in some way, then?"

The grip on his shield loosened. I knocked it away with my sword and kicked him to the ground. "I don't suppose you're going to try to write that off as sweaty hands?"

Again, he launched me away with a bubble. And again, I charged. He barely had a chance to summon another shield to parry it.

"You have shame written all over your face. But why?"

For a few seconds, I was met with silence. Then, he fought back in a burst of pure power I wasn't expecting. This time, the bubble he summoned was filled with spikes again. It knocked my sword out of my hands. I scrambled to pick it up.

"Fine!" he said. "If you can read me this well, I might was well just tell you. It's only a matter of time before your game of 20 questions gets you there. It's because I did something that I shouldn't have. And then I didn't tell you, which only made it worse. I've probably put you in danger. And I'm afraid that if I tell you now, we might never be friends again." He dropped his shield. "And I don't want to lose you." Steven sunk to the ground inside his spiky bubble. It disintegrated, leaving only Steven, curled in a ball, his eyes closed.

I took a shaky breath. "I promise. Whatever it is, it won't tear us apart as much as we've already been torn. What did you do?"

I was met with silence once again.

"Do you want me to use my other 15 questions to figure it out?"

More silence.

"It has something to do with my notebook, right? The vision and all?"

His silence was unreadable. He shut his eyes and was still.

I had a flash of anger. After all of that, he still refused to tell the truth. He shut me out again. Like he didn't know how much it was tearing us apart already. All he cared about was keeping his little secret, no matter the cost.

His shield was down. He was defeated. Yet I did something I was taught never to do. I slowly walked over to Steven's crouching body. The ruins around me allowed my footsteps to echo against the walls around me. Still, he didn't move. I slowly raised my sword to a target who had already admitted defeat.

* * *

I stared at Steven. Curled in a ball, the controller fallen to the ground. Through his closed eyes, I slapped Steven across the face. The world seemed to stop for a second as I hit, like as an impact effect in some sort of fighting game. Before anybody could say anything, I walked away.

We didn't talk for the rest of the day. I fell asleep with tears pooling in my eyes.

* * *

\- - -Day 15- - -

When I awoke, I felt awful. My anger subsided, and I was left with guilt and shame. I let my emotions get the better of me. I ruined the last chance we would get to mend our friendship.

With closed eyes, I reached for the clasp of the cage beside my bed. But… there was no cage.

My eyes shot open. I rocketed my attention towards the desk. It was completely empty. I kept my pen in my pocket, but the notebook…

I looked to the floor. And there it was. I would call it peaceful, but it wasn't. I didn't have to measure the gem to know how it got bigger. Somehow, someway, it destroyed the cage. That scared me. I didn't know how many times it would have to do that to become a gem mutant.

A gem mutant who had the power to control reality to its will…

I hesitated for a second or two. Steven and I didn't seem to be on speaking terms. But this was more important than all of that. I needed him to destroy it. If it could not only escape, but eviscerate an iron cage, we needed to destroy it before it had a chance to do the same to us.

I activated my rocket boots to brush the clouds away from my feet and walked towards Steven's bed.

"Steven, wake up," I said. I shook him several times.

His eyes opened and saw me. They lit up. "Oh, hey, Connie!…" he trailed off, remembering yesterday. "Is there, um, anything you want?"

"The gem got bigger," I said. "Somehow, it destroyed the cage. We need to put our differences aside. I'm done whining about sentimental value. Just destroy it."

Steven's brain seemed to run at a million miles an hour as he processed what I said. His face switched between a hundred expressions: happy, sad, angry, hopeless, hopeful, and everywhere in between.

Finally, he said, "I can't."

I blinked a few times. "What? What do you mean, you can't?

He stared at me for what felt like an eternity. He said nothing. And just before I said something more, he unfroze. He still said nothing as he slowly raised his hand to a position which beckoned me to grab it. A handshake? No… he wanted to dance.

I sighed. I wished so badly we could do it, but I knew it couldn't work. We could only fuse when we were emotionally resonant, and if we were as apart as one another as the two of us, there wasn't a way in the world we could fuse. Or glow, or some subset of glow, either. In the moment, I wasn't sure if we could have ever fused again.

Before I could say all that, he snapped. "Just do it."

Maybe against my better judgement, I grabbed Steven's hand.

Neither one of us willing to look the other in the eye, we began to dance.

I immediately noticed that Steven's dance was uneven. While normally he preferred to dance loose, to go with the flow, his moves were stiff. I guessed his dance matched his mental thought process: it was uneven and disorganized. I could see an earnestness in his attempt, but that earnestness didn't seem to be paying off.

Though, I was one to talk. I looked at my own feet. Like Steven, my dance was a mess. I tried to force my feet to cooperate, but it was hopeless. It wasn't that I wasn't trying, of course I was! But I couldn't get my mind to agree with my heart, and I couldn't get either of those to agree with the rest of my body.

I glanced into Steven's eyes. I felt a flash of emotion. Shame. Anger. Sadness. And maybe a little bit of hope.

I sympathized with those emotions, of course. I was…

Wait a minute. What just happened? How did I… We weren't anywhere close to fusion, right?! And yet I saw his thoughts all the same, something that could only happen as we closed in on a glow. I didn't stop my awkward dance. Maybe it got a little more awkward. I tried to rationalize that it didn't matter that my dance was sloppy, we weren't going to glow, anyways. But now I wasn't so sure.

I glanced at my feet again. I noticed something I hadn't the first time. Even though both of our moves were clunky and robotic, our feet lined up perfectly to an extent that would be difficult to do with practice. It didn't make sense, but it was happening all the same.

I thought back to our first bout of fusion training. Garnet's song about letting go of negative thoughts. How could we be so close to fusion if we each held such animosities?

But I realized, maybe there was something more to it. We weren't hiding our thoughts. He was hiding something he did, but he wasn't hiding from his thoughts. Same with me: I made mistakes yesterday, but I wasn't trying to avoid them. I was facing them. I was literally facing the person I slapped in the face head-on.

As I saw Steven began to glow, I had flashes of my own emotions. Shame, that I couldn't stop myself from slapping him. Anger, that he wouldn't tell me the truth until now. Sadness, that we were drifting apart. And now, just a little bit of hope we could grow closer.

Finally, I gave in. Our bodies each glowed and entered that state so close to fusion.

I saw Steven's fear, most of all. Even now, he didn't want to say it. But he didn't have to. As he thought of it, I saw it like some sort of movie.

* * *

He had just woken up on day 12. He seemed to be fine at that point. As he walked to my side to see if I was awake, he stepped on something. He looked down and I saw my notebook, sitting on the floor. It echoed the image I saw yesterday. Here it was, the secret Steven tried so hard to hide.

I didn't hear his thoughts, but I felt his emotions. First, confusion. Then, realization. He realized the reason for the notebook's erratic behavior and its gem. It unnaturally fell to the floor day after day, and he realized why it was important. The floor was the reason for everything going sour, we both already knew that. So it didn't take much to realize that objects left on the floor would be affected as well.

On impulse, he muttered it under his breath. "Room, I want you to erase Connie's notebook."

The vision nearly snapped, then and there. The wave of anger I felt nearly severed the connection. Not that he tried to destroy it, that was rational, but that he didn't tell me. I calmed myself. I needed to see everything, first.

The clouds swirled around the grounded notebook. My eyes widened. My anger rose when I realized the implications. He erased my book and replaced it with an identical one! And he didn't tell me? Why!?

When the clouds stopped swirling, and all semblance of my part of knowing what was going on disappeared. The notebook was still there.

Steven spiked with fear. He tried again. "Room, I want you to destroy this notebook."

Again, once the clouds stopped swirling, nothing.

He tried, again and again. He rephrased it every time, each time a bit louder, but nothing worked.

He quickly picked up the book and set it on my table. He was ashamed he would even try that without asking me. But more than that, he was scared. Scared that he had no power over this. He had been able to do anything except leave. But now he could do anything except leave and wish gems away. He knew the danger of a mutant with the ability to wish anything into existence but didn't know what to do about it.

So, he tried to distract himself. He put up a façade and pretended that everything was fine. At some points in time, he almost believed it. But at others, it was all a lie. He wanted to tell me, but every time, he told himself, "Not now, later." And when later came, his shame rose over his fear. He knew he should have told me, and every minute he waited, it got harder to tell the truth. Not only that he tried to destroy my notebook, but that he lied about it, over and over again. And that he put me in danger because of that lie. The pain was almost unbearable.

* * *

When I snapped back to reality, the glow was gone. Steven had his head hung.

I said nothing.

"So?" he said. "Aren't you going to berate me? Aren't you going to slap me again? It's not like I don't deserve it."

"Tell me the truth," I said. "If you had poofed my book, what would you have done?"

He looked me straight in the eye. "I was going to tell you, right away. The only reason I didn't do so was because-"

I didn't let him finish. I just hugged him.

"Then I don't need to punish you. You acted on impulse, you probably did what I would've if I realized the truth. Yeah, you didn't tell me. Yeah, I'm a little mad about that. But I think you've beaten yourself up about it enough. If I wanted to punish you, then you've done that enough yourself."

"But it put you in danger!"

"We can worry about that later. I'm just glad you told me."

After a few more moments, we broke from our hug.

"You're really not mad at me?"

"Oh, I'm mad at you, all right. But you needed a hug. Besides, you know what you did wrong, it's not like scolding you would give you any new information."

"T-thanks, Connie."

I turned my attention to the notebook. Its gem seemed to taunt me. Despite my brave face, the implications of this were harsh. Sometime soon, it was almost guaranteed my book would go sour, and I didn't know what I could do to fix it.

"What about a hammer?" I said.

"Huh?"

I drew a hammer and tried to smash the gem. The moment it touched the gem, the hammer vanished into pink clouds.

"Well, there goes that idea."

Steven was baffled. "Can you please stop joking around?! We might only have a day to prepare before this thing attacks."

Suddenly, a light bulb turned on inside my brain.

"You're right, we might only have a day to prepare… so what are you waiting for?"

"Huh?"

"Keep up, Steven! Traps! We need to set them! So let's go!"

"R-right!"

Steven started frantically drawing in his notebook.

I smiled at Steven. I would talk to him later, but right now, most of all, he needed to move on. So I was doing my best to show I wasn't scared.

He probably knew I was, of course. He'd been in my head probably a dozen times in the last week. But sometimes a façade's what somebody needs.

I'd talk to him about this more. But maybe I'd wait until after we beat up my notebook.

Tomorrow, then. Or whenever it appeared. I'd be ready.

* * *

 _A/N: So! Lot's of stuff in this chapter. It took me a while to make sure the stuff I wanted to happen, happened, without twisting the characters to be horribly out of character, and without making it seem too jarring. Hope it all worked out!_

 _I have BIG plans for the chapter either after this one, or maybe the one after that. For now, though, I wanted to leave you guys without a major cliffhanger, just in case it takes me another 3 months to make a new chapter._

 _BTW, sorry about the lack of chapter within a week. Again, I forgot the finals were approaching, and suddenly, my schedule completely vanished._

 _FFR: Favorite, Follow, Review._

 _Oh, and hey, Connie?_

"Yeah?"

 _Good luck next chapter._

"…Huh?"

 _No spoilers!_

"Wait a minute, now I want to know! What are you gonna do to me! Come on, we're prepared for the monster this time…"

 _Next time: We figure out what I'm gonna do to her. See you guys then!_


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